Betty White’s career spanned more than seven decades and began just as television was becoming a major form of entertainment in American homes; it’s no wonder she was hailed as the First Lady of Television (a decades-long nickname immortalized in a 2018 documentary). A defining figure of the medium who broke so many glass ceilings, White held a string of extraordinary firsts, according to PBS: She was the first female to produce a nationally broadcast TV show, the first to star in a sitcom, the first to receive an Emmy nomination, and the first to host a game show. And the groundbreaking actress adored being in front of the camera. “I just love to work,” she told Parade magazine. “So I’ll keep working until they stop asking.” Yet for all her visibility on screen, White led a quiet life when the cameras were off.
Born in 1922, White married for the first time in 1945, although the marriage would only last six months. She wed second husband Lane Allan in 1947, and, following their 1949 divorce, returned to her parents’ Brentwood home, where she lived for years before marrying Allen Ludden in 1963. Ludden, the beloved host of the überpopular gameshow Password, would become her great love and lifelong partner. Even as White’s career reached new heights when she began playing the unforgettable Sue Ann Nivens in 1970s sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose Nylund in the classic ’80s sitcom The Golden Girls, the star remained rooted in the couple’s two-story New England–style cottage in Brentwood, California. White stayed there long after Ludden’s death in 1981, living in the home until her own passing in 2023, just weeks before what would have been her 100th birthday on January 17th.
Though Ludden enjoyed entertaining, White was famously uninterested in cocktail parties, preferring informal gatherings and the familiar comforts of rooms she rarely felt compelled to leave. A devoted animal advocate, lifelong reader, and enthusiastic board games player, she shaped her interiors around ease and companionship rather than formality. Across her homes, she cultivated spaces that felt lived-in and personal—filled with books and surrounded by pets and objects that reflected her enduring love of animals. We’ll take a look below at the domestic life of a woman whose warmth, wit, and generosity extended well beyond the screen.
