CELEBRITY GENEALOGY
The Roots Recipe for Betty White
Betty White, now 96 years old, graced us all with her presence at the Emmys. Mischievous and beautiful as ever, she was honored for her remarkable eight-decade career in show business which includes classic series such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Golden Girls.
But it was one of her more recent shows — Hot in Cleveland — that puts me most in mind of her own life. In it, White played a wisecracking, Midwest caretaker of a house a trio of Los Angelistas landed in upon impulsively fleeing their California lives. An Illinois native, White moved to Los Angeles while still a child, so this series was a version of her life in reverse.
Though born in Chicago in 1922, Betty Marion White was already residing in a neighborhood ensconced between Melrose Avenue and Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles by the time of the 1930 census. Her father, Horace L. White, a WWI vet and electrical supplies salesman, seems to have been doing fairly well in spite of the nascent Great Depression, as the family owned their home and — perhaps more importantly for Betty’s future career — a radio.
That only-child Betty was close to her parents, Horace and Tess, can be seen in this 1954 California Voter Registration in which the then 32-year-old Democrat shared the same address as her Republican parents. This…
