Elizabeth "Betty" Hofstadt Francis (formerly Draper) is a fictional character on AMC's television series '' Mad Men'', wife of Don Draper ( Jon Hamm) and mother of his three children. Blonde and beautiful but emotionally distant and immature, she spends the bulk of the series slowly growing as a person amid the social and political turmoil of the 1960s. The character's appearance is often compared to that of Grace Kelly, with the similarities between the two also drawn during the first season of the series.
Jones received two
Golden Globe
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
nominations and a
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...
The character of Betty Draper was not originally part of the pilot episode, though she did appear in the pilot. The script established that lead character Don Draper ( Jon Hamm) was married, but only by a mention in dialogue, and there was no intention to show his home life. January Jones was instead initially considered, along with Elisabeth Moss, for the character Peggy Olson; Moss was ultimately cast as Peggy. Show creator Matthew Weiner then wrote two scenes featuring Betty, and Jones successfully auditioned for the part two days later. Although there were no full scripts or even plot ideas involving the character at the time, Weiner promised Jones that the character would be developed.
Weiner has attributed ''Mad Mens visual style to the influence of film director
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
, who featured a signature " icy blonde" female character in many of his films. Betty Draper's character has also been compared to that of ''Peyton Place'''s Constance MacKenzie: "cold, remote, and emotionally unavailable."
Fictional character biography
Backstory
Betty was born Elizabeth Hofstadt in 1932. According to her son's birth certificate, she was born in Cape May, New Jersey, where her wealthy family summered. In season two the character is said to have been raised in the home rule Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, in
Cheltenham Township
Cheltenham Township is a home rule township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. Cheltenham's population density ranges from over 10,000 per square mile (25,900 per square kilometer) in rowhouses and high-rise apartments along Chelte ...
. Betty is of German ancestry. Betty attended Bryn Mawr College, an exclusive Seven Sister college majoring in anthropology, after which she briefly modeled in Italy before moving to Manhattan. It was during this time that she met Don Draper – he was writing ad copy for a fur company, and she was one of their models. He began courting her by buying her the fur coat she wore at a shoot. Betty and Don were married in May 1953. Betty's mother Ruth died early in 1960, three months before the events of the episode " Ladies Room". Her father, Gene (
Ryan Cutrona
Ryan Cutrona (born July 29, 1949) is an American actor.
Career
Ryan Cutrona is an American actor best known for playing gruff authority figures and military men in both dramatic and comedic roles in films and on television. The second son of ...
), has a girlfriend named
Gloria
Gloria may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music Christian liturgy and music
* Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Greater Doxology, a hymn of praise
* Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, a short hymn of praise
** Gloria (Handel)
** Gloria (Jenkins) ...
(
Darcy Shean
Darcy, Darci or Darcey may refer to:
Science
* Darcy's law, which describes the flow of a fluid through porous material
* Darcy (unit), a unit of permeability of fluids in porous material
* Darcy friction factor in the field of fluid mechanics ...
), whom Betty dislikes and whom her father marries sometime in the 18 months between seasons 1 and 2; Gloria leaves Gene when he begins showing signs of mental deterioration in Season 3. He moved in with the Drapers during season 3 and later died in that season, set in 1963. Betty has a brother, William ( Eric Ladin), who is married to Judy ( Megan Henning) and whose daughters Don and Betty consider to be "rowdy." Betty's confidantes have included her neighbor Francine Hanson (
Anne Dudek
Anne Louise Dudek (born March 22, 1975) is an American actress. She is known for portraying Tiffany Wilson in the 2004 film ''White Chicks'', Danielle Brookson in the USA Network television series ''Covert Affairs'', Dr. Amber Volakis on the Fox ...
) and Glen Bishop (Marten Holden Weiner), the young son of divorcée Helen Bishop ( Darby Stanchfield). Ill-suited for parenting, Betty has a strained relationship with her children, particularly with her daughter Sally ( Kiernan Shipka).
Season one
Betty and Don Draper live in a large house in suburban
Ossining, New York
Ossining may refer to:
* Ossining (town), New York, a town in Westchester County, New York state
*Ossining (village), New York, a village in the town of Ossining
* Ossining High School, a comprehensive public high school in Ossining village
* Ossi ...
, with their children Sally and Bobby (Maxwell Huckabee). In the second episode, set in the spring of 1960, Betty starts to see a psychiatrist to address repeated spells of numbness in her hands, which medical doctors have indicated are
psychosomatic
A somatic symptom disorder, formerly known as a somatoform disorder,(2013) A Night to Remember", Betty and Don seem to have reached an agreement, but after a dinner party where Betty is embarrassed to be considered a "demographic" by Don and his associates, she confronts her husband for the first time about his adultery, specifically with Bobbie Barrett ( Melinda McGraw). Don, however, denies having an affair. The next day, with a glass of wine in hand, Betty searches through Don's belongings for proof of his indiscretions but does not find any. Betty awakens Don - who is sleeping on the couch - that night and explains that she doesn't want things to "be like this." He repeats that he did not do anything, and when she asks if he hates her, he insists that he loves her and doesn't want to "lose this." When preparing dinner the next day, an Utz commercial featuring Jimmy Barrett (
Patrick Fischler
Patrick S. Fischler (born December 29, 1969) is an American character actor known for his roles as Jimmy Barrett on the drama series ''Mad Men'', Dharma Initiative worker Phil on the drama series '' Lost'' and Detective Kenny No-Gun on the poli ...
) airs on television, reminding Betty of Don's infidelity. After seeing this, Betty calls Don at work and tells him she doesn't want him to come home.
Betty does turn to Don when she learns her father has suffered a stroke. She and Don leave the children with a neighbor and drive to visit Gene. Betty is visibly impatient with Gloria and William, but she and Don are careful to present a united front. At the end of a stressful day, Betty makes Don sleep on the floor of the guestroom, but later joins him on the floor, where they make love. The next morning, Gene mistakes Betty for her late mother Ruth, suggesting they "go upstairs." Betty is shocked and frightened, but tries to pretend that everything is all right. When she and Don return to New York, Betty surprises Don by asking him to leave again.
In the Season 2 finale, Betty discovers she is pregnant. Although she brings up the subject of abortion with her doctor and has sex with a random man she picks up at a bar, at the end of the episode she asks Don to return home, and tells him she is pregnant.
Season three
Season 3 begins with Betty in her third trimester, seemingly reconciled with Don. In Episode 5, she gives birth to Eugene Scott Draper, whom she names after her father. After giving birth, Betty comes to the quick realization that her dream of everything being perfect will never come true.
During Episode 3, Betty and Don attend a country club party hosted by Roger Sterling ( John Slattery) and his new wife, Jane Siegel Sterling (
Peyton List
Peyton List may refer to:
* Peyton List (actress, born 1986), American actress from Massachusetts; starred in ''Mad Men'', ''FlashForward'', and ''Frequency''
* Peyton List (actress, born 1998)
Peyton Roi List (born April 6, 1998) is an Ameri ...
Nelson A. Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...
. Henry is infatuated with Betty, and though she seems reluctant to return his feelings at first, as the season progresses, their affair intensifies. Betty eventually ends it, feeling guilty.
In Episode 11, Betty corners Don, after getting into a locked drawer in the desk in his home office that contains pictures and documents of Don's past life. (Don had inadvertently left his keys in his clothes, and Betty heard them jingling in the dryer). She forces him to give her an explanation, and he haltingly tells her about his life as Dick Whitman, how he came to exchange dog tags with Lieutenant Don Draper, and his half-brother
Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
's (
Jay Paulson
Joseph Andrew "Jay" Hughes Paulson is an American actor.
Personal life
Paulson was born in New York City, where he lived until 1984, when his father moved the family to Los Angeles.
Paulson graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in History and is a li ...
) suicide. While apparently sympathetic to his feelings of guilt about Adam's death, Betty is conflicted about Don's having hidden this aspect of his life from her.
After President John F. Kennedy's assassination and Margaret Sterling's ( Elizabeth Rice) wedding the following day, Betty meets with Henry, who confesses his desire to marry her. They passionately kiss, and after the encounter, Betty returns home to tell Don she no longer loves him, leaving him stunned. This culminates in her seeing a divorce lawyer in the season 3 finale. During the same episode, Roger, whose daughter is friends with Henry's daughter, unintentionally reveals to Don that Betty and Henry are involved. An incensed Don confronts Betty. After calling her a whore, he assures her that she "won't get a nickel" in the ensuing divorce, and he intends to seek sole custody of the children. The next morning, Don and Betty inform the children they are separating, and both older children react badly.
After moving into Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's new office, Don calls Betty and tells her he will not fight her, and he wishes her the best. She tells him he'll always be their children's father. The season ends with Betty taking a plane to Reno with baby Gene and Henry.
Season four
Betty's presence in
season four
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pola ...
is diminished compared to the previous seasons. Season 4 opens with Betty, Henry, and the children still living in the former Draper residence (which Don owns) following Betty's marriage to Henry. The residence is a point of contention for Don and Betty, as Don is still paying the mortgage, and Betty is required by their divorce agreement to move out but has not.
Throughout Season 4, Betty finds her marriage to Henry strained by tensions with Don and by deteriorating relations with Sally. When she discovers Sally has become friends with her old confidant, Glen Bishop, Betty forces them to end the friendship. Glen's reappearance is the catalyst for Betty to finally insist to Henry that it's time for them to move because of the "low-caliber people" taking over the neighborhood, much to Sally's distress.
In the season finale " Tomorrowland", Betty and Francis are packing to move out of the Ossining house and into a new home in nearby Rye, New York. When the children's nanny, Carla ( Deborah Lacey), lets Glen into the house to say goodbye to Sally, Betty becomes upset and fires her, refusing to give her a reference. This angers Henry, with whom Betty feels increasingly dissatisfied. At the end of the episode Betty waits for Don at the now-empty Ossining house, telling him she is unhappy with her new life. Don senses her desire to try and repair things between them, but instead informs her of his engagement to Megan Calvet ( Jessica Paré). Betty congratulates him, but is visibly disheartened and angry that he has moved on. They leave the house through opposite doors.
Season five
Betty's presence in
season five
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pola ...
is further reduced due to January Jones' pregnancy. In the episode, " Tea Leaves", Betty and her family are now shown to be living in a large Victorian estate in Rye, New York. Since the season four finale, she has put on a significant amount of weight and dislikes leaving the house. Her mother-in-law, Pauline (
Pamela Dunlap
Pamela may refer to:
*''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'', a novel written by Samuel Richardson in 1740
*Pamela (name), a given name and, rarely, a surname
*Pamela Spence, a Turkish pop-rock singer. Known as her stage name "Pamela"
* MSC ''Pamela'', ...
), advises Betty to take diet pills since Pauline believes Henry is unhappy in the marriage, even though he repeatedly tells Betty that he loves her regardless of her appearance. Betty goes to her doctor to get a prescription, but he finds a lump in her throat that could be cancerous. When it turns out to be benign, Betty is barely relieved and returns to focusing on her physical condition. By the episode " Dark Shadows", Betty attends
Weight Watchers Weight Watchers or WW may refer to:
* Weight Watchers (diet), a comprehensive weight loss program and diet
* WW International
WW International, Inc., formerly Weight Watchers International, Inc., is a global company headquartered in the U.S. tha ...
meetings to attempt to regain her old form but receives mixed results; she notes that it is difficult to take the weight off. Betty is often seen eating very little in an attempt to lose weight but appears to weaken when she consumes whipped cream directly from the can and occasionally sneaks sweets. Betty regresses further when she goes to Don's NYC apartment to pick up her kids and becomes jealous and bitter over the lovely, modern accommodations and Megan's lissome beauty. She then tries to stir up rancor by mentioning Don's deceased friend
Anna Draper
This is a list of fictional characters in the television series ''Mad Men'', all of whom have appeared in multiple episodes.
Overview
;Cast notes:
* Maxwell Huckabee and Aaron Hart have split the role of Bobby Draper in the first season, whil ...
( Melinda Page Hamilton) to Sally, but after Megan and (particularly) Don tell Sally more about Anna, Betty is defeated; Sally expresses visible contempt for her mother, further straining their relationship. However, when Sally begins menstruating for the first time while visiting her father in New York, she immediately returns to Rye and seeks out her mother for help. Here, Betty is finally shown to be a caring mother to Sally; showing what is at this point uncharacteristic warmth, Betty recognizes that Sally needs her and provides comfort and guidance to her daughter.
Season six
Betty spends most of the beginning of the sixth season losing the weight she gained over the past year. After visiting the
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
in search of one of Sally's friends and being snidely dismissed by one of the young people there as a "
bottle blonde
A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal ...
", she dyes her hair brunette. Betty's hair later reverts to its original blonde color. When Henry announces that he wants to run for public office, she has mixed feelings about the idea (still being concerned about her weight).
In episode 8 ("The Better Half"), Betty is back to her original weight and actively campaigning alongside her husband. Henry sees the excess attention that Betty receives and is turned on by it, as is Betty, who is beginning to feel more confident about herself. When one of Henry's colleagues makes a pass at her at a fundraising dinner, she informs him that she's had three children, to which he replies that he doesn't care. But he's misunderstood her meaning; she then tells him triumphantly, "No, look at me. Can you ''believe'' I've had three children?" before leaving with Henry.
Betty goes to Bobby's summer camp for a family weekend in "The Better Half", driving down without Henry. Don, also on his way to the camp, sees the newly svelte Betty lost at a gas station, and they go down to the campground together. They spend the afternoon with Bobby, and everyone has a wonderful time. That night Don visits Betty's cabin, and they share a drink, reminiscing about the early years of their marriage and the kids. Don accepts Betty's tacit invitation to enter her cabin, and they make love. Betty and Don talk afterward, and Betty admits that she's happy with Henry, is no longer as mad at Don as she once was, and feels sorry for Megan, who doesn't know that loving Don is the worst way of getting to him. The next morning Don wakes up alone and goes down to the cafeteria, where he sees Betty and Henry eating together. Don says hello to them and goes off to eat, alone, at the other side of the room.
In "The Quality of Mercy", Betty takes Sally on an overnight trip to interview at Miss Porter's boarding school. She detects Sally is troubled by something but doesn't realize it's because Sally saw Don in bed with his downstairs neighbor, Sylvia Rosen (
Linda Cardellini
Linda Edna Cardellini (born June 25, 1975) is an American actress. In television, she is known for her leading roles in the teen drama ''Freaks and Geeks'' (1999–2000), the medical drama '' ER'' (2003–09), the drama thriller ''Bloodline'' (2 ...
). Sally is accepted at Miss Porter's, but Betty soon calls Don with the news that Sally has gotten suspended because she bought beer with a fake I.D. and got drunk with some other girls. Betty sadly blames herself for Sally's troubles and tells Don, "the good isn't beating out the bad."
Season seven
In episode 3, "Field Trip," the distinctly un-maternal Betty questions if she is a good mother, and if her children love her, after a field trip with Bobby to a farm goes sour. Bobby trades Betty's sandwich for a bag of gumdrops, leaving Betty with no food. Betty orders Bobby to eat the candy and is visibly irritated with him for the rest of the day. When they return home, neither is willing to talk about what happened. Henry insists that the children love her, but Betty believes it will change in time.
In episode 5, "Runaways", Betty speaks her mind about the Vietnam War, causing a rough patch between herself and the conservative Henry during a dinner party. Bobby overhears the arguing and sees Henry sleeping in the den. When Sally comes home after getting hurt faux sword-fighting at Miss Porter's, Bobby asks her if Betty and Henry are getting a divorce. Sally assures him they aren't, and Bobby tells her he wishes he could go with her to school. At the end of the episode, Betty resents Henry for telling her what to do, say, and think.
In episode 9, "New Business," Betty is revealed to be pursuing a master's degree in psychology at
Fairfield University
Fairfield University is a private Jesuit university in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1942. In 2017, the university had about 4,100 full-time undergraduate students and 1,100 graduate students, including full-time ...
in Connecticut.
In episode 13, "The Milk and Honey Route," Betty begins to feel dizzy and winded at school and falls down while climbing the stairs, fracturing her rib. When she sees her doctor, Betty is shocked to discover that her recent lightheadedness is a sign of aggressive, advanced lung cancer that has begun to spread throughout her body. Both Henry and Sally pressure her to undergo chemotherapy, but she stoically refuses, saying "I've learned to believe people when they say it's over." She writes a letter to Sally, telling her in a matter-of-fact way how she wants to be dressed and made up for her funeral, and then stating: "Sally, I always worried about you because you marched to the beat of your own drum, but now I know that's good. I know your life will be an adventure. I love you, Mom."
In the series finale, "Person to Person," Betty insists to Don (and apparently to Henry) that her children should live with her brother William and his wife after her death, so that the boys will have a woman in their lives. Betty is last seen reading a newspaper at her kitchen table while smoking a cigarette, as Sally is in the background, washing dishes.
Reception
Betty Draper appeared in
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
's list of TV's Most Intriguing Characters. '' TV Guide'' named her one of the most fashionable TV characters. She was also included in ''
Glamour
Glamour may refer to:
Arts
Film
* ''Glamour'' (1931 film), a British film
* ''Glamour'' (1934 film), an American film
* ''Glamour'' (2000 film), a Hungarian film
Writing
* ''Glamour'' (magazine), a magazine for women
* ''The Glamour ...
''s list of the 12 Most Stylish TV Characters. '' HuffPost'' named her as one of the Worst TV Characters in 2012, saying "her unchanging narcissism and her selfish petulance simply bore us to tears".
Betty has been considered an embodiment of “the problem that has no name” chronicled in the seminal 1963 feminist novel '' The Feminine Mystique'' by Betty Friedan. The novel examined the epidemic of unhappiness and dissatisfaction experienced by many upper middle class housewives in the 1960s (like Betty) due to their inability to form their own identity and life outside the home. This cultural phenomenon is explored in the series through Betty, who, unlike female characters such as Peggy and Joan, is trapped and "exiled from the career world" due to her upbringing, social class, education, and marital status.