Betty White Ludden Pictured With Her Golden Retriever, Pontiac. (Image via National Comedy Center)
As the 37th anniversary of The Golden Girls television debut is marked today, the National Comedy Center, the United States’ official cultural institution dedicated to the art form of comedy, announced that it has received rare artifacts, wardrobe and awards from the estate of comedy legend and actress Betty White, which will become part of the Center’s permanent archives. Much of the collection, which includes pieces from White’s award-winning work in acclaimed TV comedies The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls and Hot in Cleveland, is now on display at the National Comedy Center’s state-of-the-art museum in Jamestown, New York.
The collection donated to the National Comedy Center features scripts hand-annotated by Betty White, plus several articles of Betty White’s screen-used wardrobe now on display – including a Rose Nylund sweater, an Elka Ostrovsky tracksuit from Hot in Cleveland, and a gown worn by White at the 1986 Emmy® Awards ceremony, plus five Emmy statuettes for wins spanning nearly 60 years, including Life with Elizabeth in 1952, The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1975 and 1976, The Golden Girls in 1986 and as guest host of Saturday Night Live in 2010. The collection also features career memorabilia, including the sweater White wore in her iconic Super Bowl XLV commercial and a Guinness World Record certificate for “Longest TV Career by a Female Entertainer.”
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
