Game show host Allen Ludden, was born Allen Packard Ellsworth October 5, 1917 Mineral Point, Wisconsin. His family later migrated to Austin Texas, where he earned a master’s degree in English, and taught high school before ending up in New York in radio with radio station WTIC as a continuity writer.

While today, he is synonymous with the TV game show “Password,” veteran viewers remember the masterful way he came onto the radio and television landscape on the legendary G.E. College Bowl. While Don Reid is given the credit for creating College Bowl, Allen actually developed the format----including the complicated radio setup of each university team participating from its own campus by remote transmission, while Allen moderated the game from the New York NBC studios.

When CBS and General Electric decided to make the move to television for College Bowl in 1958, the Sunday NFL doubleheader had not been invented, so College Bowl had an open territory---usually being paired with Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour Sunday afternoons. The "varsity sport of the mind" was a true classic, bringing Allen to the stage with the dark-framed glasses and collegiate-style crewcut as "the man with the questions." Ludden's dramatic delivery of questions in a tight game as time was ticking away built as much drama to a COLLEGE BOWL match up as Dick Enberg orchestrates for a thrilling AFC football game.

The decision for Allen to do PASSWORD was controversial. So identified was he with COLLEGE BOWL, many viewers were sceptical of how Allen would interact with celebrities. However, the vocabulary/educational element of PASSWORD offered enough respectability, though one woman wrote TV GUIDE after PASSWORD's premiere of how she couldn't understand why Ludden would choose to do "the most insipid show on the air." The 2 p.m. premiere in December 1961 featured TO TELL THE TRUTH's Tom Poston and Kitty Carlisle as the first celebrities. However, PASSWORD had actually been introduced the previous January (without a title) in a segment of Goodson-Todman's popular I'VE GOT A SECRET. Celebrity guest Vivian Vance's "secret" was she wanted to try out a new word game on the panel. So Vivian and Garry Moore presided over a mock-up game with Bill Cullen and Betsy Palmer challenging Henry Morgan and Bess Myerson. The SECRET audience enjoyed the game, but the popular "lightning round" was not yet part of the format.

PASSWORD was given an immediate Tuesday night at 8 version as a lead-in to the CBS comedy DOBIE GILLIS. The early daytime ratings sent PASSWORD to the top of the Nielsens, occasionally topping the venerable AS THE WORLD TURNS. The nighttime show performed well enough, CBS decided it wanted PASSWORD to anchor its Sunday night line-up at 6:30 in the fall of 1962. That decision meant Allen Ludden was faced with a dilemma which could have removed him from the long association he would enjoy with what arguably is one of television's top five classic games.

The new time slot would see PASSWORD only a half-hour after the finish of G.E. COLLEGE BOWL. The network felt Allen appearing twice in 90 minutes would be overexposure (in retrospect, a ridiculous choice because CBS moved nighttime PASSWORD to Mondays at 10 by spring as a companion to STUMP THE STARS at 10:30, capping a four-game prime time with TRUTH and SECRET from 7:30-8:30). Allen's wife, Margaret (McGloin), whom he had married in 1943, had passed away after a long bout with cancer during the third week of daytime Password. Left with a family of teenagers and massive medical bills to pay, Allen reluctantly gave up the battle of brains for the war of words. Later, Ludden would become a consultant for CBS News, guiding correspondents on performance and fashion style.

In 1962, Allen met Betty White when Betty guest starred on his CBS show Password. Allen fell in love right away. The next summer, Allen and Betty were booked to co-star in the play, "The Critic's Choice" for four weeks in New England. Allen rented a house in Dennis, Massachusetts. His wife of many years had passed away a few years before, so Allen brought along his children, David Martha and Sarah and their two poodles, Willie and Emma.

Betty became friends with Allen's children and dogs. Allen was falling deeply in love with Betty and was courting her. He had proposed once, but Betty didn’t accept. Allen knew that Betty would one day wear the ring that he had bought for her, and sure enough, on the second proposal, she did.

Allen and Betty announced their engagement in April 1963. And on June 14, 1963, Betty and Allen were married in Las Vegas in the Sands Hotel. Their honeymoon was three days in LaJolla, California, and then it was back to New York State where they prepared to move to a 100 year old house in Chappaqua, New York.

Ludden was the recipient of the Horatio Alger Award in 1961 and won an Emmy for hosting Password in 1976. He remained with Password until forced off in 1980 by the illness to which he would eventually succumb. Ludden died on June 9, 1981, of cancer in Los Angeles, California. He was 62.

Ludden was Posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; it is located next to his wife Betty White's star.