Who voiced Betty Rubble in the original Flintstones series? Bea Benadaret of course, you are probably thinking to yourself. What kind of question is this? Well, it's more complicated than that. Yes, Bea Benadaret was Betty's original voice in the series (not counting June Foray, who voiced her in the pilot reel). However, after the fourth season wrapped up, things changed. Bea Benaderet had left the show, supposedly due to scheduling issues with the series Petticoat Junction, but in reality, it was a bit more complicated. The folks at Hanna-Barbera, I'm assuming frustrated with having to record Benaderet apart from the other actors due to her other commitments, flat-out replaced her with a new voice actress (you can learn more about that in this post from Yowp). Whatever reason you believe, Bea was gone, and in her place came Gerry Johnson. Miss Johnson voiced Betty for the last two seasons of The Flintstones and The Man Called Flintstone feature film, but her contributions to the series seem almost entirely forgotten today. But that's not something that cannot be remedied. Today, I thought I'd put a spotlight on Gerry Johnson, her career in Hollywood, and her time as Miss Rubble.
Gerry Johnson was born in 1918 in New Jersey. Johnson loved drama and the theatrical from an early age. She won many drama contests throughout school, and even majored in both speech and drama later on. Johnson first grew to prominence after she began hosting a variety show in Dallas, Texas, appropriately titled Gerry Johnson's Variety Fair. Then, as the 1960s began, Gerry Johnson began to make a handful of TV and film appearances, including a role on an episode of Bewitched. But it was ultimately her role as Betty Rubble during the later years of The Flintstones that became her claim to fame. As exciting as this likely was for her career, it didn't come without its problems. In an interview with FilmFax magazine from December 1995, Jean Vander Pyl (voice of Wilma) discussed working with Johnson during these episodes. She mentioned that her hiring was all the decision of Joe Barbera, and it was one that left many others involved with the show puzzled. Vander Pyl also theorized that Johnson didn't have a great experience doing the show, as the other cast members were often frustrated by her lack of experience in the field of voice-acting.
As sad as this is to hear, I cannot say it's surprising. Unlike the other voice actors, Johnson had no experience in voice-acting, either for cartoons or on the radio. Add in the fact that she was replacing a much-beloved actress, and you get a scenario that I don't think anyone in the show would have wanted to be in. The idea that she didn't enjoy the experience seems even more genuine when you look at her post-Flintstones credits. Apart from some additional voices in The Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel Show, Gerry Johnson had all but disappeared from the entertainment world after the show wrapped up. She continued to reside in LA before passing away on January 24, 1990, at the age of 71.
Now that I've brought you all up to speed on Gerry Johnson and her career, it's time I share with you the real meat of this post. Published in The Albuquerque Tribune on April 12th, 1986, years after she left the role of Betty, this article details her career, her first encounter with Joe Barbera, and what she was up to after the series concluded. Even through all the issues it sounded like she faced throughout the show, Johnson appears to still have warm feelings about the experience, even two decades later.
Betty's voice: It's a laughing matter
By Ollie Reed Jr.
It's funny how seemingly insignificant occurrences can have such profound effects on our history and our culture.
Here, for example, is a sobering thought. It's possible that if Gerry Johnson's parents had been able to find a babysitter one night many years ago, Betty Rubble of "The Flintstones" would not have giggled quite the way she did in the '60s.
When Johnson was 3 years old, her parents took her to a movie theater. They didn't want to, but no sitter was available. Her parents expected young Gerry to fall asleep after a few minutes. Instead, she sat there with rapt attention, watching the entire movie (she doesn't remember what it was, but it starred Jeanette MacDonald) and a live appearance by Maurice Chevalier.
"I went home with a Maurice Chevalier accent," Johnson said during a visit to Albuquerque this week. "That's when my interest in show business started. From then on, I never thought of doing anything else."
For the want of a babysitter, a career was launched that would include work on stage, screen and television, stints as the host of television shows in Dallas and Los Angeles and—perhaps most important—the part of Betty's voice in the popular TV cartoon series.
"The Flintstones," which was aired by ABC on Friday nights from 1960 to 1966, made TV history as the longest-running primetime cartoon series ever. The William Hanna-Joseph Barbera production was patterned after Jackie Gleason's situation comedy "The Honeymooners," but it was set in prehistoric times. Fred and Wilma Flintstone were the main cave couple. Their neighbors were Barney and Betty Rubble. Alan Reed did Fred's voice, Jean Vander Pyl was Wilma, and the versatile Mel Blanc put the talk into Barney. Bea Benaderet was Betty's voice from 1960-64, but when she left the show Johnson took over.
"When Bea left, they wanted me to do the voice like she did. And I imitated it perfectly. But then Joe (Barbera) said, 'No, I think that's wrong. We want your interpretation.'
"I think Betty is a good-natured bubblehead. I did her with a giggle (she demonstrated), and that kind of set the tone for the character. Betty didn't have opinions of her own or get mad at the boys (Fred and Barney) when they got into trouble."
Johnson, who was born in Jersey City, N.J., but grew up in Hollywood, said she has been doing voices all her life. She did them in skits at home, and they came in handy when she was studying speech and drama at Stanford University and performing everything from Noel Coward to William Shakespeare on stage and they were invaluable for the characters she created for her TV shows.
In Dallas in the '50s, she hosted, sang and danced and did skits on the daily "Gerry Johnson Variety Fair" and starred in a weekly prime-time sitcom called "The Gerry Johnson Show." It was during this time that TV Guide gave her an award as "Outstanding TV Personality in the Southwest."
The early '60s found her in Los Angeles, hosting a daily talk and variety show called "Panorama Pacific." One day Barbera was a guest on the show.
"I asked him to bring his sketch pad. He'd draw something and hold it up for me to see and say, 'What do you think of this?' He'd show me a picture of a pompous dowager chicken, and I'd do a voice I thought would fit the picture. Then he'd do a French poodle, and I'd do another voice."
Barbera was impressed. Benaderet was about to leave "The Flintstones" and he offered her job to Johnson.
She remembers what it was like doing a "Flintstones" show.
"We all came in and sat at a table and Joe would go through a script kind of mumbling it and holding up pictures of the character," she said.
Since Johnson was the cast member whose contract said she could do more than one voice without getting paid more, she usually supplied voices for several characters besides Betty. She didn't mind.
"It made it more interesting than just doing Betty Rubble all the time."
Johnson did Betty's voice for the 1966 feature-length cartoon "A Man Called Flintstone" and the voice of a "little Southern belle bear" and other characters for the 1964 cartoon feature "Hey There, It's Yogi Bear."
She said she enjoyed working on "The Flintstones," but admitted she missed the publicity CBS had been giving her when she was host of the network's "Panorama Pacific."
"In 'The Flintstones,'" she said, "the characters, not the people who were the voices, were the thing."
Now, she is developing a night-club act.
"I'm not fond of working in nightclubs," she said. "I'm not too fond of the setting, the noise, people drinking. But I'll be singing and doing a little dancing and using character voices. I'll be doing marvelous comedy songs because I think comedy is where I belong."
Anyone who has ever heard Betty Rubble giggle will agree with that.
To finish this post, off, I thought I'd share this nice little promotional photo for The Man Called Flintstone film, featuring both Gerry Johnson and Jean Vander Pyl. To give you a better idea of how overlooked Gerry Johnson is in the history of this show, most sites erroneously refer to her in these photos as Bea Benaderet. Hopefully, this has set the record straight, and given you better insight at one of the more unsung members of the Flintstones family.
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