White had been a game show panelist. Ludden was a game show host. They married in 1963 and stayed happily that way until his death in 1981. Ludden was a well-educated man. White has become more and move beloved as the years roll on. If I may boldly venture an opinion, it is impossible to hate Betty White.
Their coupling attracted newspaper columnists who filled everyone in about their lives, separately and conjointly. You can find out more in these two Sunday newspaper features. The first one was in the Yonkers Statesman of March 14, 1964 while the second came from the Associated Press of May 16, 1965.
The Allen Luddens — 'At Home' In Chappaqua
For Him, The Password Is 'Education'
By JANE F. BONNEVILLE
What the general store once was to the small town, the supermarket is to modern suburbia — a meeting place for the community. So look sharply next time — that handsome young couple pushing "his and hers" shopping carts may well be Allen Ludden, host of TV's "Password" program and his bride, TV star Betty White.
Now residents of Chappaqua, they share the weekly marketing chore in typical suburban fashion. And, like many husbands before him, Mr. Ludden sometimes expands the shopping list.
For some reason, unexplained, he specializes in buying pepper, ground pepper. "We have enough boxes now to last for years," commented his amused young wife. Mr. Ludden just smiled, and patted her hand.
Married last June, the Luddens are confirmed suburbanites. "Neither of us has really ever lived in a city and it never occurred to us that we would," said Mr. Ludden, a former Briarcliff resident.
Charmed By The House
Their new home, in the hills north of the village, was a farmhouse 100 years ago. "Originally right on the road, some years ago it was moved back and joined to the barn. Now the barn is the living room, the master bedroom, and a playroom in the basement," explained Mrs. Ludden, with a bride's pleasure in showing others her lovely house. And the home makes an ideal "backdrop" for the captivating Mrs. Ludden, a tawny haired import from California.
"When we first saw this house, surrounded by lilacs in bloom and fruit trees in flower, it was love at first sight for us all." She then spoke of discovering a waterfall while she and her husband were walking about the grounds, a discovery more exciting than finding oil on the land.
The collective "we" she used includes the children of Mr. Ludden, who was a widower. His son David is at Andover Academy; Martha is a Horace Greeley High School student, and Sarah attends the Robert E. Bell School.
Mrs. Ludden, who likes "anything out of doors," is also an advocate of shared family fun. Both are at hand with a swimming pool which doubles as a skating rink in winter.
Author, Ex-Teacher
That scholarly look is genuine however, for Mr. Ludden is a scholar, author and former teacher as well as entertainer.
He holds B.A. and Master's degrees from the University of Texas, and a Phi Beta Kappa Key, which he doesn't talk about either. He taught at the University and a Texas high school before entering the Army in 1942.
At war's end he had the rank of captain, a Bronze Star, and valuable experience working with Maurice Evans, gained while producing and directing more than 40 Army shows in the Pacific.
The entertainment field soon demanded his full attention, but Mr. Ludden never lost his deep interest in young people. He was with a Hartford, Conn., radio station for some time and conducted an award-winning teenage discussion program, "Mind Your Manners." Later he wrote several books based on interviews, and letters he received.
For several years he moderated another award winner, the TV program "G-E College Bowl."
And Mr. Ludden has the distinction of being the only person in the performing arts to receive the Horatio Alger Award, given for "outstanding achievement in free enterprise and the American tradition of equal opportunity." But he brushes off such honors in favor of talking about education and what free enterprise holds for youth.
"If people don't think opportunities exist, they should wake up and look around. The future 'or youth is greater now than at any time in the past 100 years." Mr. Ludden feels the Peace Corps is also awakening youth to the fact that young people are now part of the whole world.
However, It Is his opinion that the educational system in this country has shown little professional progress since the 1900's.
"If It had improved as much as the telephone in the past 60 years we would have one — of an educational system in this country."
"Children will have opportunities galore if equipped to meet them. It boils down to the citizen and the school tax. Just because one's own children are through school, or one has no children, does not absolve the citizen of responsibility to his country."
Served In Dobbs Ferry
Mr. Ludden no longer sat relaxed on the gold covered sofa. He leaned forward, serious, intent. "Money spent for education is the only investment in the future we can make. Youth is our natural resource."
His is not lip service to a theory but conviction born of experience. Some years ago he served on the Citizens' Committee for Schools in Dobbs Ferry.
"I saw children in elementary schools attending double sessions for four years. I went into homes where people said, 'this system was good enough for me'." Mr. Ludden termed this a "hard corps system of an old community."
"For years," he continued, "inadequately educated generations have voted down school bond issues. People sit around complaining about school boards, yet many times these very people do not even know who serves on the boards."
While he praised the education in some Westchester areas his sense of duty to others is strong. "I feel a responsibility, and keep trying to prevent 'Dobbs Ferry' from happening again." So he plugs improved education and better schools at every opportunity, even on his TV programs.
A New Book
He keeps in touch with young people through his books. The latest, "Plain Talk for Young Marrieds" came out early this month. It deals with problems encountered early in marriage but Mr. Ludden emphasizes that he does not pretend to be an authority — merely expresses his own opinions. Many such problems," he remarked, "are, I believe, due to failure in communication and lack of respect for others."
These are not problems in the Ludden home. Within the walls of the tasteful, cheerful house live people whom "behavior experts" would describe as a "strong family," meaning happy, salubrious, contented, and to use a popular phrase, adjusted.
Mrs. Ludden will retain her identity as Betty White, free lancing as guest celebrity on TV game shows and doing commercials. Recently she has appeared on "The Price Is Right" and "Match Game."
But it is also quite evident that this radiant young woman has no intention of permitting her career to interfere with her newest, but favorite role — homemaker for the Ludden family.
Life Is Just Games for Allen Luddens
EDITOR'S NOTE: After playing games on television 52 weeks a year; Allen Ludden likes to drop it when he's at home. The Password master of ceremonies is a writer and gardener. His wife, Betty White, also a television gamester, is decorator, actress and gin rummy winner.
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
Associated Press Writer
New York—Allen Ludden, a Phi Beta Kappa and former university instructor, plays games professionally — on television — 52 weeks of the year. Even his vacation period is filled with programs which are pre-taped.
Betty White, his wife, is an actress who plays games professionally — on television — two weeks out of every four.
And what do the Allen Luddens do when they are relaxing at home?
They play games, of course. At the moment of this writing, Ludden is murmuring darkly because in a two-year-old cumulative Gin Rummy score, his wife has a lead of almost 6,000 points.
The couple, who base their activities in New York where Allen's daily Password is produced, have lived since their marriage two years ago in a big, old and beautiful house in Westchester County, about 35 miles from mid-town Manhattan. There are three Ludden children (Allen was a widower), David, 17, Martha, 15, and Sarah, 11. They are as eager gamesmen as the adults in the family.
• • •
THE FAMILY often plays Password at dinner; chess, checkers, bridge, cribbage or anything else in odd moments. Allen and Betty met on Password, having arrived at their professional status by two very different routes.
She grew up in Los Angeles, studied acting and moved onto radio, with bit parts in such shows as This Your FBI, The Great Gildersleeve and Blondie. In 1951 Betty became the star of a local Los Angeles TV program—on the air five hours a day, six days a week, which explains her easy manners before the cameras. Later she starred in Life With Elizabeth, a live comedy show seen all over the country, and in 1954, the daily Betty White Show on NBC.
Allen, meanwhile, had become interested in dramatics as a student at the University of Texas and directed an Austin Little Theatre Group while teaching there. He produced many army shows in the Pacific during World War 2, and later became personal manager and advance man for Maurice Evans on a nationwide tour of "Hamlet." Eventually, he got into radio, with a teenage interview show, Mind Your Manners on a Connecticut station. This led him to New York as moderator of the radio version of College Bowl.
• • •
Allen has a cultivated taste for games: Betty was born with it.
"I come from a family of compulsive game players," she said. "Last week when I was flying east with my mother, we made up a little game. I gave her initials, and she had to fit them to the titles of old movies."
Ludden, the author of four non-fiction books and a novel, all directed at readers under 21, is more inclined to non-game pursuits in his spare time.
He is a gardener, and in two years the spacious grounds and gardens of their old colonial home have been restored to mint condition. While he is involved in two writing projects, Betty has been busy redecorating the interior.
BOTH OF THEM KEEP active, too, with stock engagements. They have appeared together in “Critic's Choice,” “Janus,” “Mr. President” and “Bell, Hook and Candle.”
Betty has starred in six different productions of "The King and I," in "Take Me Along and "Brigadoon." Next month she will tackle the part of Nellie Forbush in “South Pacific” in Milwaukee's Melodytop Theater, an assignment for which she is now taking dancing lessons.
"Actors love to play television games," Betty said. "Mostly because, if they are good at it, games reveal the performer as a person, which has never happened before. But game-playing can also be a problem — type-casting. If you are an actress by trade and have played games a lot on television, lots of luck on your career. That is one reason I'm delighted to play stock so they remember . . ."
"The audience soon forgets that she's Betty White," added Allen. "But I'm afraid it always remembers that I'm Allen Ludden who is acting a part."
Whatever the audience thinks, such is the power of television that they have been breaking house records wherever they appear.
Ludden, who developed College Bowl into a furiously paced intelligence contest between two crack college teams, thinks of it more as a "spectator sport" for the TV audience than a game that the audience can play along with the personalities on camera, true of Password.
• • •
"PLAYING GAMES on television demands only one thing," said Betty. "That is concentration on the game, which means forgetting the cameras."
Ludden, whose principal television exposure for more than 10 years has been on game shows wants to expand his television horizons. He is thinking about a talk show and perhaps a variety program.
"But I never want to leave day-time TV," he said. "There you find a continuing audience."
There are a few mistakes in this.
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