Betty White and Allen Ludden’s Relationship Timeline: Relive Their Romance for the Ages

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Betty White and Allen Ludden's Relationship Timeline: Relive Their Romance for the Ages

A Golden Girl with a golden marriage. Betty White died just weeks before her 100th birthday, but the iconic actress had enough love to last her two lifetimes. When she passed away on December 31, 2021, at the age of 99, White left behind an astounding legacy. The Mary Tyler Moore Show alum was halfway to an EGOT at the time of her death, having won the 2012 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording for her narration of her 2011 memoir, If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t), as well as multiple Emmys. The legendary actress also earned two lifetime achievement awards throughout her time in the industry, taking home the coveted trophy at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild Awards and winning the gold statuette at the 2015 Emmy Awards. In addition to a critically-acclaimed career that spanned more than eight decades in television, the Golden Girls alum was just as successful in her personal life. Though she was married three times — first, to Dick Barker, for less than a year in 1945, and second, to Lane Allen, from 1947 to 1949 — it was White’s relationship with her third husband, Allen Ludden, that not only stood the test of time, but served as a romantic inspiration for her fans around the world. [jwplayer K1nge9qy-zhNYySv2] The pair, who met on the set of Password in 1961 — Ludden was the host of the game show — went on to tie the knot in 1963. Though the couple had no children together, upon marrying the game show host, White became stepmother of his three kids. Ludden shared children David, Martha and Sarah, with his late first wife, Margaret McGloin, who died just prior to Ludden meeting White. The Hot in Cleveland alum and television personality were married for 18 years before the game show host died of stomach cancer in 1981. Thirty years later, when asked by Anderson Cooper why she never went on to date or remarry after Ludden, White responded, “When you’ve had the best, who needs the rest?” In 2015, she revealed that her one regret was not marrying Ludden sooner. Days after the Proposal star’s death in late 2021, Mama’s Family actress Vicki Lawrence — who costarred with White on the hit sitcom — told The Hollywood Reporter that White’s assistant revealed that the actress’ last word was “Allen.” Keep scrolling to see White and Ludden’s relationship timeline: [podcast_block]

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1961

By the time White met Ludden on the set of Password, she was already a bonafide TV personality of her own, having starred on her own sitcom, Life With Elizabeth, for three years in the mid-1950s. She also hosted her own eponymous talk show.

During their first meeting — on-air — White couldn’t resist subtly flirting with her future husband. When asking what her summer plans were, the actress quipped, “What did you have in mind, Al?”

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1962

Password may have brought White and Ludden together, but it wasn’t they were cast as love interests in a Cape Cod production of Critic’s Choice that sparks began to fly.

"We were up there for three weeks and pretty soon he didn't say hello, he'd say, 'Will you marry me?'' the Illinois native recalled in a 1997 interview with the TV Academy Foundation. “It was a joke! I'd laugh it off and he'd laugh it off.”

Despite White’s own rejection — and her then-boyfriend’s disapproval — Ludden kept proposing to his future bride, even buying her an engagement ring, White wrote in her 1987 memoir, Betty White in Person.

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1963

Ludden finally won White’s heart for good after her bought her a pair of diamond earrings — and a stuffed bunny rabbit — for Easter, she told the TV Academy in 1997. The couple tied the knot several months later in Las Vegas. After exchanging vows with the Password host, White became the stepmother of his three children.

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1981

The pair were happily married for nearly two decades when Ludden passed away from stomach cancer on June 9, 1981 — five days before his and White’s 18-year wedding anniversary.

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2021

White died on New Year’s Eve 2021, and she was thinking of her late husband as she passed away. The last word she ever spoke was “Allen,” as Lawrence recalled.