Betty Garde Collection

Betty Garde
(1905 – 1989)

Many Starlets turned to radio as a way to make ends meet between stage or screen projects. After all, how else can you find the glamour of Stardom if the audience never gets to see your face? The actresses who specialized in working on "Radio Row" were willing to forgo the chance at glamor to receive a regular paycheck.

Betty Garde was born in Philadelphia, 1905, and worked in New York for most of her career. She joined Actors Equity in 1922 and had several roles on the Philadelphia and Boston stage before premiering on Broadway in 1925. Critics praised her work as a comedienne, which was fortunate because she may not have been leading lady material on the stage (Betty stood 5'10").

It made little difference to radio audiences how tall she was, and she filled a number of roles including regular appearances as Lorenzo Jones' wife Belle, on soap opera My Son and I, part of the regular company on The Fat Man, DuPont's Cavalcade of America, Front page Farrell, The Henry Morgan Show, The Molle Mystery Theatre, and others. In 1934, CBS had her work with Orson Welles on The American School of the Air, and Welles kept her on for other projects, including Les Misérables, The Mercury Theatre of the Air, The Campbell Playhouse, and Ceiling Unlimited.

Betty did find some work in film. She was the witness whose testimony sent an innocent man to prison in Call Northside 777 (1948), and a murderous inmate in the prison picture Caged (1950). On TV, she was the Kramden's maid on The Honeymooners and appeared on two episodes of The Twilight Zone.

Betty Garde died on Christmas Day, 1989, in Sherman Oaks, California. She was 84.