📍Beverly Hills, California, USA
1923 – 1940“I was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in January 1922, the only child of Horace White, a lighting company executive, and my mother, Tess. When I was a baby we moved to California, first to Alhambra and then, during the Depression, to Los Angeles, and I grew up in Beverly Hills, a quiet, leafy place then, with orange groves and open hills. My father built crystal radio sets and sold them to earn extra money, and when people couldn't pay, he'd trade them for dogs, so our home was always full of animals. My parents were both great animal lovers, and every summer we went camping and hiking in the High Sierra, which made me fall in love with nature and wildlife. My first dream was to be a forest ranger, but in those days women weren't allowed to be rangers, so I turned to writing and performing instead. I went to Horace Mann School and Beverly Hills High School, where I wrote and starred in the graduation play, and I sang and acted in school productions. After graduating in 1939, I sang on an experimental television broadcast, and after volunteering during the war, I started out in radio and then early television. I went on to work in television for more than eighty years, in Life with Elizabeth, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls and Hot in Cleveland, and I spent my life campaigning for animals. In 2010, the Forest Service made me an honorary forest ranger, which made the little girl from Beverly Hills very happy.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today