This post has been several years coming. As soon as I realized the importance of Betty Feezor and the impact she’s had on our region, I knew this adventure was an absolute necessity.
When I worked in the Radio division, I was literally one floor away from Betty’s former studio. I’d walked by it hundreds of times, greeted by her smiling image on the bronze plaque on the huge, heavy wooden doors. You knew history had been made in that studio…but it was now mostly storage.
When I accepted my new job, I knew the clock was running out. Plus, the Feezor Studio had just been cleared…time to make it happen.
I was standing at the entrance to her studio one morning when Director of Operations & Engineering Don Shaw happened to pass by. I told him my idea and he suggested we track down John Murray. Mr. Murray had been with WBTV since 1975 and was now the Director of Live Broadcast. He worked with Betty for those last few years of her program. Luckily, we found him in the next studio over. He agreed to show me around the old studio and we met a few days later.
When I arrived for our meeting in the Feezor studio, I saw a copy of her Carolina Recipes Vol. 2 and a Top ‘o the Day cookbooks on a mixing board. He brought them from home to show me.
And it’s autographed! He said the whole crew got a copy of her latest cookbook—if you asked. The smart ones asked for a cookbook and gave it to their wives—so lucky!
Mr. Murray told me that the whole studio was brand new in 1955 and when he became full-time back in 1975, there two studios: one for day programs (news & Betty Feezor) and one for production work (filming commercials). When you first joined the station’s production crew, you started out on Betty’s show with the boom mic and then worked your way up to camera.
Betty’s kitchen set was in the far back corner on the right. That’s where the plumbing was—so her kitchen sink and the rest of the set had to go there against the wall.
The set has been long gone, but the plumbing pipes are still there. Here’s where they were and what’s left of them.
Her wood-grained cooktop island was actually built on wheels. Once the show was finished, they pulled a curtain around the set, wheeled her island to the prop area and another show would start broadcasting. Cue Clyde and Ty! If Betty needed to film a commercial separate from her live show, they would wheel the island into the nearby Patterson Studio and she’d be ready to go.
The remarkable breakthrough with Betty’s show was how they filmed her cooking segments. It was hard in those days to get a giant rolling camera near her cooking without getting in the way. Their solution was to hang a mirror from the ceiling at an angle and film the reflection. Brilliant!
If you look up to the top part of the studio wall, you’ll see two large empty spaces. Those were once glass-walled for the master control room and a viewing room for guests.
It’s all empty now. Interesting bit of trivia: Mr. Murray said they had also built a duplicate control room that was identical button for button downstairs.
I asked if there was anything left from the time when Betty was still on the air. He pointed to this picture and said, “see those ice cream scoops?”
He was pointing to these dome-like lights that, when angled, looked like a scoop of ice cream on a cone. Those are actually large utility lights that were used when they were not on the air. They kept the room illuminated, but not at the brighter, more intense level that studio lights shine. And here they still hang:
They kinda look like something from World War II. It’s a dull blue dome with the blocky, chunky numbers. But they still work and they used to shine down on Betty and the kitchen set.
Throughout the show, Betty would have to quickly switch gears from cooking, sewing or crafts to a live commercial. Mr. Murray said they had a cabinet full of props like empty Biltmore Dairy ice cream cartons or an empty box of frozen fish sticks. They’d finish her cooking segment, cut to a logo of her show, toss an empty product prop to her and then they’d come back live for the commercial. I’ve read and heard from many people that she never used a script and ad-libbed all those commercials. She had impeccable timing and knew all the points to hit for the client. “She was a pro all day long,” he said.
Towards the end of our time together, he said that The Betty Feezor Show had phenomenal ratings. There were only three major channels back then and the WBTV signal cast a very, very wide net over a lot of North and South Carolina. Plus, she was this super nice lady with an amazing personality that people enjoyed watching. Add to that, it was a staple of mid-day programming for more than twenty years! He said her show drew in a ratings share that was in the 60s. That’s unheard of…then or now. Her show’s success translated into advertising dollars that helped seed WBTV’s news department. How about that?!
I am so grateful that Mr. Murray took some time to share all of these stories and knowledge from his time on Betty’s show. I wanted to do a small video doing a quick walk through the Feezor studio to the spot where her set once stood. I asked if he would be willing to be in it and point us past the “Coach’s Corner” blackboard over to the wall with the plumbling lines, but he didn’t want to. I guess he’s much more comfortable behind the camera all these years!
Oh well, here’s a silent walk from just outside the Feezor Studio, through the doors and back to the spot where Betty’s kitchen set once proudly stood. There’s not much left there but the memories.