Betty Furness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Furness

Elizabeth Mary Furness (January 3, 1916 – April 2, 1994) was an American actress, consumer advocate and current affairs commentator.

Early years

Elizabeth Mary "Betty" Furness was born in New York City, the daughter of wealthy business executive George Choate Furness and his wife Florence. Furness made her stage debut in the school holidays in the title role of Alice in Wonderland. She also posed for commercial advertising. She began her professional career as a model before being noticed by a talent scout and being signed to a film contract in 1932 by RKO Studios. Her first film role was as the "Thirteenth Woman" in the film Thirteen Women (1932) but her scenes were deleted before the film's release.

Over the next few years she appeared in several RKO films, and became a popular actress. Among her film successes were Magnificent Obsession (1935) and the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Swing Time (1936). By the end of the decade she had appeared in over forty films, but during the 1940s found it difficult to secure acting roles.

Career

In 1948 Furness was performing in the television series Studio One, which was broadcast live. She filled in for an actor to promote Westinghouse products during the advertisement break, and impressed the company with her easy and professional manner. They offered her a contract to promote their products and she subsequently became closely associated with them. One of television's most recognizable series of commercials had Furness opening wide a refrigerator door, intoning, "You can be sure ... if it's Westinghouse." (The spots were so well known they were often parodied: one Mad magazine gag imagined the words on a neon sign, with a few key letters burned out: YOU CAN....SU.E IF IT'S WESTINGHOUSE!")

Ironically, Furness may be best known today for a Westinghouse commercial in which she did not appear: during a live spot, a refrigerator door failed to open, creating one of the most infamous bloopers in TV history. This actually did not happen to Furness, as has often been claimed, but to another actress (June Graham), who was substituting for her.

Furness was a regular panelist on What's My Line? in 1951. She appeared in a series of live mysteries on ABC Television, under the weighty title Your Kaiser Dealer Presents Kaiser-Frazer "Adventures In Mystery" Starring Betty Furness In "Byline" which ran in November and December 1951, and again on ABC in syndication in the fall of 1957. The series was produced by the DuMont Television Network and ran on DuMont under the title News Gal.

In 1953 she appeared in her own daytime television series Meet Betty Furness, which was sponsored by Westinghouse; she remained a spokesperson for the company until 1960. She then attempted to move into a less commercialized role in television but found herself too closely associated with advertising to be taken seriously. During this time she worked on radio, and also on behalf of the Democratic Party.

Furness has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution Motion Pictures, and to Television.

Consumer advocacy

In 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson, aware of her work for the Democrats, contacted Furness and offered her the position of Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs. She accepted the assignment and continued in this role until the end of the Johnson administration in 1969. During her tenure she silenced her critics by applying herself studiously to her role and learning the issues relating to consumer rights. She headed the Consumer Affairs Departments of New York City from the late 1960s. From 1969 until 1993 she served as a board member for Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. She was appointed by then-Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller in August 1970 to serve as the first chairman and executive director of the New York State Consumer Protection Board, and served in the position until July 1971 before returning to television.

Signed by WNBC in New York, Furness reported on consumer issues, and specifically targeted examples of consumer fraud. In 1976 she began an association with The Today Show filling in as anchor following the departure of Barbara Walters and providing regular reports. In 1977 her program Buyline: Betty Furness won the Peabody Award.

Personal life

Furness married four times. Her first marriage was to composer-conductor Johnny Green in 1937 with whom she had one child. After her divorce from Green in 1943, she married radio announcer Hugh "Bud" Ernst Jr. twice; first in 1945, and again in 1946. Her second marriage to him lasted until his death in 1950. She married again in 1967 to Leslie Midgley, who survived her. Her granddaughter is Liza Snyder, from the CBS Television series Yes, Dear.

In 1990 Furness was diagnosed with cancer. She continued working for The Today Show until she was released from her contract in 1992. Her dismissal was widely publicized and controversial and was viewed by many of Furness' supporters as ageism.

Furness expressed her philosophy of never declining a job, and she believed it be the reason that she progressed through such an unconventional series of professions. During her illness she stated that she wanted nothing more than to be able to work, and, (consumer reporter to the end), once mentioned in an interview that, as far as her cancer went, "the treatment is worse than the disease," but her health continued to deteriorate until her death in New York from stomach cancer in 1994.

http://projects.latimes.com/hollywood/star-walk/betty-furness/

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FURNESS, BETTY U.S. Actress/Media Personality/Consumer Reporter

Betty Furness--whose first television appearances were in 1945 and whose last were in 1992--enjoyed one of the most diverse, remarkable careers in U.S. television, both as commercial spokeswoman and, later, as a pioneering consumer reporter.

Born Elizabeth Mary Furness in New York City in 1916, Furness was raised in upper class fashion by a Park Avenue family. Her first job was in 1930 when, at the age of fourteen, she began modeling for the Powers agency. Her pert and pretty looks, and her educated speaking voice, soon gained the attention of Hollywood. She was signed by RKO movie studios in 1932 and moved, with her mother, to California. While taking her senior year of school on the studio lot, Furness starred in her first film. She would go on to act in over thirty films, the majority of them forgettable. After seeking greater fulfillment in stage roles on the west coast and after the birth of her daughter and the failure of her first marriage, Furness, with her daughter, journeyed to New York hoping to land theater parts. A self-described "out of work actress," Furness found herself able and willing to break into the very infant medium of television.

For a few months in the spring of 1945, Furness endured blistering heat, from the lights needed to illuminate the set, and other primitive technologies to host DuMont's "Fashions Coming and Becoming." By 1948, she was in front of the television cameras again as an actress for an episode of Studio One, an anthology program sponsored by Westinghouse appliances. In that era of live television, many commercials were also done live, frequently performed to the side of the main set. Furness was unimpressed with the actor hired to perform the commercial and offered to take a stab at it. Company executives were impressed and offered her the $150 a week job pitching their products. Following her philosophy of never turning down a job, Furness signed on.

With TV still apparently innocent, audiences had not yet grown jaded by TV commercials and the people who appeared in them. Furness's blend of soft sell and common sense was soon moving the merchandise. Her delivery was always smooth and memorized (she refused cue cards), her tone pleasant and direct, and her look pretty, approachable. In little time the company had signed her to be their sole pitchwoman. And soon the pitchwoman was selling out stores and receiving, on average, one thousand pieces of fan mail a week.

Furness's place in the popular culture cannon was phrase. From January to July 1953, Furness hosted Meet Betty Furness. a lively, informative daily talk show--sponsored by Westinghouse--on NBC. Later she acted as hostess on the Westinghouse sponsored Best of Broadway and made regular appearances on What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret.

Furness's affiliation with Westinghouse ended (by mutual agreement) in 1960. Though financially well-off, Furness wanted to keep working. She attempted to obtain jobs at the networks as an interviewer but found the going rough. As Mike Wallace and Hugh Downs had experienced, Furness was facing the challenge of putting her commercialized past behind her. While waiting to break in again in TV, Furness worked in radio and for Democratic political causes. She also entered the last of her three marriages when she married news producer Leslie Midgely in 1967.

It was while preparing for her wedding that Furness got a call from President Johnson. Familiar with her work on behalf of Democrats, and impressed with her work ethic, LBJ offered her the job of Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs. Furness, again following her job philosophy, took the position and with it transformed herself from actress/spokeswoman into political figure. She later recalled it as the best decision of her life.

Still in the public mind as the "Westinghouse lady," consumer groups voiced criticism at her appointment. But Furness threw herself into learning consumer issues, testifying before congress, and traveling the country. Within the year she had silenced her critics and won over such forces as Ralph Nader and the influential consumer affairs magazine, Consumer Reports. Furness held her White House position until the end of the Johnson administration in 1969. Later she headed the consumer affairs departments of both New York City and New York state. Then she reentered broadcasting for the second act of her television career. She was signed by WNBC in New York specifically to cover consumer issues, the first full time assignment of its kind. Furness found herself now--at age 58--pioneering a new type of TV journalism.

Over the next eighteen years, Furness took a hard line against consumer fraud and business abuse. Her reports criticized Macy's department store, Sears, and Lane Bryant among other businesses. She was also the first to report on the Cabbage Patch Kid craze and on the defective Audi automobile. In 1977, her local show Buyline: Betty Furness won the Peabody.

Earlier in 1976, Furness filled in as co-host on Today between the tenures of Barbara Walters and Jane Pauley. From that time on she contributed regular consumerism pieces to the program. Furness made her last TV appearances in 1992. Battling cancer since 1990, Furness had abbreviated her work week to four days. NBC used that reason to oust her, and she was given notice in March in one of the most blatant examples of ageism in media history. Though both Today and WNBC aired tributes to her during her last week, Furness did not keep her frustration out of the press. Nor did she hide her desire to keep working. But a reemergence of her cancer prevented it and she passed away in April of 1994.

It is hard to place Betty Furness's career in a historical context because it was so eccentrically one of a kind. Of the legions who pitched products from the 1950s and 1960s, hers remains the only name still very much a part of popular history. In her movement from political insider to TV commentator she laid the groundwork for Diane Sawyer and Mary Matalin. And in her work as a consumer advocate she predates John Stossel and others who have since adopted that as their beat.

In assessing the career of Betty Furness one stumbles upon a feminist retelling of the Cinderella story: a smart, savvy woman who turned her back on TV make believe and soft sell to embrace hard news and tough issues. That one individual's life encompasses such width and depth speaks well not only for the far-reaching talents of one woman but also for the progression of women's roles in the latter half of the twentieth century and for the dynamic development of television and its ability to record them both.

-Cary O'Dell

BETTY FURNESS. Born in New York City, New York, U.S.A., January 1916. Attended Brearly School, New York City, 1925-29; Bennett School, Millbrook, New York, 1929-32. Married: 1) John Waldo Green, 1937 (divorced, 1943); daughter, Barbara Sturtevant; 2) Hugh B. Ernst Jr., 1945 (died, 1950); 3) Leslie Midgley, 1967. Began career as teenage model, John Robert Powers agency; movie picture actress, 1932-39; appeared in stage plays, including Doughgirls, 1949-60; appeared on CBS radio, Ask Betty Furness, 1961-67; columnist, McCall Magazine, 1969-70; special assistant to U.S. President for consumer affairs, 1967-69; worked for Common Cause, 1971-75; joined WNBC-TV as consumer reporter and weekly contributor to Today Show, 1974. Honorary degrees: L.L.D., Iowa Wesleyan College, 1968, Pratt Institute, 1978, Marymount College, 1983; D.C.L., Pace University, Marymount College Manhattan, 1976. Died in New York, 2 April 1994.

TELEVISION

1950-51 Penthouse Party 1951 Byline 1953 Meet Betty Furness 1954-55 The Best of Broadway (host, spokesperson) 1974-90 Today Show

FILMS (selection)

Professional Sweetheart, 1933; Emergency Call, 1933; Lucky Devils, 1933; Beggars in Ermine, 1934; Keeper of the Bees, 1935; Magnificent Obsession, 1935; Swing Time, 1936; The President's Mystery, 1936; North of Shanghai, 1939.

RADIO

Dimensions, 1962; Ask Betty Furness, 1962

STAGE (selection)

Doughgirls

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