Portrait of Betsy Blair

Birthday profile

Betsy Blair

Betsy Blair, American actress and dancer (died 2009)

Born
December 11, 1923
Died
March 13, 2009
Zodiac sign
Sagittarius
Birth year
1923

About Betsy Blair

Betsy Blair (born Elizabeth Winifred Boger; December 11, 1923 – March 13, 2009) was an American actress of film and stage, long based in London. Blair pursued a career in entertainment from the age of eight, and as a child worked as an amateur dancer, performed on radio, and worked as a model, before joining the chorus of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in 1940. There she met Gene Kelly; they were married the following year, when she was age 17 and divorced sixteen years later in 1957. After work in the theatre, Blair began her film career playing supporting roles in films such as A Double Life (1947) and Another Part of the Forest (1948). Her communist sympathies led to an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Blair was blacklisted for some time, but resumed her career with a critically acclaimed performance in Marty (1955), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She continued her career with regular theatre, film and television work, mainly in Europe, until the mid-1990s.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Betsy Blair timeline

  1. Blair pursued a career in entertainment from the age of eight, and as a child worked as an amateur dancer, performed on radio, and worked as a model, before joining the chorus of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in 1940.
  2. After work in the theatre, Blair began her film career playing supporting roles in films such as A Double Life (1947) and Another Part of the Forest (1948).

The world when Betsy Blair was born

Betsy Blair was born in 1923. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1923

  • #1 song"Yes! We Have No Bananas"
  • Top movieThe Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille)
  • Best-selling bookBlack Oxen – Gertrude Atherton

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst 24 Hours of Le Mans race
  • Top headlineTime magazine publishes its first issue
  • Technology milestoneFirst neon signs appear in the United States
  • Defining fadDance marathons
  • Notable inventionFrozen food process (Clarence Birdseye)
  • World population1.93 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWarren G. Harding / Calvin Coolidge
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population111.9M

1923 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Betsy Blair's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19232026
Gas$0.22$3.45/gal
Average home$5,700$435,000
Average income$3,380$67,500
Movie ticket$0.15$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population111.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.