Betty Walker

The British actress of this name is listed under her stage name, Helen Roberts. Betty Walker (August 7, 1928 – July 26, 1982) was a Jewish-American actress and comedian who performed primarily during the 1950s and 1960s. Life and career Walker was born Edith Seeman in Elizabeth, New Jersey to Latvian Jewish immigrants. She acted in the original cast of Paddy Chayefsky's play Middle of the Night, which first premiered in 1956, and she reprised her role as the Widow for the film adaptation three years later. In addition to performing in Chayefsky's play The Passion of Josef D, she acted in a number of other television dramas, such as Decoy, Playhouse 90, and The Doctors, playing a patient named Polly Merriweather in Dec. 1967. As a popular comedian of the 1950s and 1960s, Walker was best known for her "telephone act", wherein she delivered a monologue to her unseen friend "Ceil" at the other end of the line. The humor of this act draws upon the Jewish stereotypes of the "overbearing mother", which had gained popularity originally in Jewish joke books after World War II. While the "Jewish mother" trope gained popularity in newer venues, such as on television, in print, and on comedy albums, notably, she was often personified in these media through her "son's vision" of her. It is also notable, then, that Walker actively assumed these traits, which gave her transgressive mimetic power over them. Walker made guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Merv Griffin Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and The Steve Allen Show, where she often performed her monologue to "Ceil."