Last week we lost the beloved Betty White. Known to make people laugh through her work on Golden Girls and Mary Tyler Moore, most people don’t realize she was a pioneer in TV. She and the late great Irma Phillips laid the foundation of TV’s daytime landscape; Betty White helped found daytime talk shows, while Irma Phillips is the mother of daytime soaps creating Guiding Light ranks as the longest running scripted show. GL aired for 72 years before going off the air in 2009. To celebrate our feat, the Daytime Emmy’s asked Betty White to introduce the Guiding Light tribute at the 36th Emmy Awards. This week I began reading When Women Invented Television: The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong which profiles both of these great women. Granted I’m only a couple of chapters in, but it is a fascinating read.
WikiTree believes we are all connected so of course I had to check out how I might be connected to Betty White. According to their calculation I am 19 degrees from her connecting through my mom’s brother’s wife’s line to Allen Lunden, Betty White’s husband.
