Adelaide Hawley Cumming, a broadcasting pioneer who reigned on television as kitchen queen Betty Crocker during the 1950s and early ’60s, died Monday in Bremerton, Wash. She was 93.
Cumming fell ill at her home on Saturday and was taken to a local hospital, where she died.
Cumming, then known as Adelaide Hawley, had already worked in radio when she was tapped by General Mills in 1949 to be the first and only television version of Betty Crocker, personification of the food company’s biggest brand.
Beginning in 1950, the blond-haired, brown-eyed beauty hosted “The Betty Crocker TV Show” weekly on CBS, followed by the “Betty Crocker Star Matinee” on ABC.
From about 1954 through 1959, she appeared regularly on the hit TV series “The Burns and Allen Show,” with her character integrated in the show’s plot, demonstrating cake mixes and other products to George Burns and Gracie Allen.
Cumming, who was born Dieta Adelaide Fish, was raised in Willet, N.Y., and won a scholarship to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where she majored in piano and voice.
After early work as a vaudeville singer, she met and married newscaster Mark Hawley, who hired her to do newsreel voiceovers.
From 1937 through 1950 she hosted “The Adelaide Hawley Programme,” a daily news and talkradio show that was broadcast nationwide, first on NBC and then on CBS, attracting an estimated 3 million listeners, her daughter said.
After General Mills discontinued her role on television, she returned to school and got a doctorate in speech education from NYU in 1967.
She moved to the Pacific Northwest with her second husband, Naval Air Cmdr. Laurence Gordon Cumming, and began a career teaching English as a second language, which she continued until Dec. 18, when she gave her final class at home.
In addition to her daughter, Marcia Hawley Hayes, she is survived by a sister, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held in Bremerton next week.
