An actress, Cumming was once considered the country’s “second most recognizable woman, next to Eleanor Roosevelt,” because of a role she played on TV: the original “Betty Crocker”. While the character was invented by General Mills in 1921, Cumming was the one who brought her to life when she appeared in The Betty Crocker Show on CBS in 1950. She continued to play the role for the company until 1964.
No 1950s housewife she, however: Cumming considered herself a feminist, and remembers telling her daughter at the time that if anyone asked, “I am the current incarnation of a corporate image. That’ll shut them up.” She died in Washington state December 21 at age 93.