Betsy von Furstenberg was a performer best known for her work on Broadway and her appearances in television shows and daytime soap operas.
Von Furstenberg typically played a debutante on stage and screen, and even wrote a novel about an heiress, titled Mirror, Mirror published in 1988. She appeared in stage productions of Child of Fortune, Nature’s Way, a revival of Much Ado About Nothing and Edward Chodorov’s comedy Oh, Men! Oh, Women! In the latter, she played Myra Hagerman alongside Gig Young as Arthur Turner. She also appeared in the play Dear Barbarians with Cloris Leachman in 1952. And in 1970 she starred in Neil Simon's The Gingerbread Lady with Maureen Stapleton.
Her work in television included appearances in the anthology series Playhouse 90, Pulitzer Prize Theatre and Kraft Theatre. She also had small roles on Have Gun — Will Travel, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and played recurring characters on the daytime dramas As the World Turns, The Secret Storm and Another World, portraying a duchess in the latter.
Von Furstenberg was herself the daughter of a German count and was a baroness in her real life. She performed with the American Ballet Theatre when she was only seven years old, modeled as a teenager and studied with renowned acting teacher Sanford Meisner before Life magazine put her on its cover in 1951 and declared her “the most promising young actress of the year.”
Betsy von Furstenberg was a performer best known for her work on Broadway and her appearances in television shows and daytime soap operas.
Von Furstenberg typically played a debutante on stage and screen, and even wrote a novel about an heiress, titled Mirror, Mirror published in 1988. She appeared in stage productions of Child of Fortune, Nature’s Way, a revival of Much Ado About Nothing and Edward Chodorov’s comedy Oh, Men! Oh, Women! In the latter, she played Myra Hagerman alongside Gig Young as Arthur Turner. She also appeared in the play Dear Barbarians with Cloris Leachman in 1952. And in 1970 she starred in Neil Simon's The Gingerbread Lady with Maureen Stapleton.
Her work in television included appearances in the anthology series Playhouse 90, Pulitzer Prize Theatre and Kraft Theatre. She also had small roles on Have Gun — Will Travel, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and played recurring characters on the daytime dramas As the World Turns, The Secret Storm and Another World, portraying a duchess in the latter.
Von Furstenberg was herself the daughter of a German count and was a baroness in her real life. She performed with the American Ballet Theatre when she was only seven years old, modeled as a teenager and studied with renowned acting teacher Sanford Meisner before Life magazine put her on its cover in 1951 and declared her “the most promising young actress of the year.”
She made her screen debut the year before, in 1950, as “Boshe the Girl from Munich” in Géza von Radványi’s Italian war drama Women Without Names.
Von Furstenberg died April 21, 2015, in New York City. She was 83.
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