
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 4, 1994                   TAG: 9404040094
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

ACTRESS, REPORTER BETTY FURNESS DIES

Betty Furness, who went from starring in B movies and TV ads for refrigerators to working as a consumer advocate and reporter, has died at age 78.

Furness died Saturday at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital, where she was being treated for stomach cancer, said her husband, Leslie Midgley.

She was a Hollywood actress in the 1930s, and in the 1950s she Furness became the well-known pitchwoman for Westinghouse appliances, telling millions of TV viewers "You can be sure if it's Westinghouse."

In the late '60s and early '70s, she worked as a consumer advocate, including a stint as President Johnson's special assistant for consumer affairs.

In 1976, Furness began a 16-year career as a consumer affairs reporter for the "Today" show. Her topics included fetal alcohol syndrome, car safety and secret court settlements in product liability lawsuits.

"She pioneered consumer TV news reporting, and she pursued it with intelligence, inquisitiveness and irrepressibility," fellow advocate Ralph Nader said when NBC let her go in 1992.

When Furness was chosen by Johnson in 1967, consumer groups feared her association with Westinghouse would make her pro-industry. But she won over critics with her energetic advocacy on hidden interest rates, credit regulation and federal meat inspection.

After Johnson left office, Furness was appointed executive director of the New York State Consumer Protection Board and then commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.

Furness, born in New York City, appeared in 35 movies, most of them low-budget B films.

"They were appalling," she once said, "except for two - `Swing Time' with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and the first `Magnificent Obsession' " with Robert Taylor and Irene Dunne.

She was spotted by Westinghouse when she took a small part in a 1949 drama on CBS-TV.

She became a star from ads during the first televised Republican and Democratic conventions in 1952. A front-page cartoon in the Indianapolis News during the GOP convention had a character asking, "Who's winning, Pop? Taft? Ike? Or Betty Furness?"

"I'd been opening refrigerator doors for three years but when I did it during the conventions I was famous overnight," she recalled.

by CNB