Bette Ford

Bette Ford, born Harriet Elizabeth Dingeldein on June 24, 1927, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, is an American actress, model, and professional bullfighter. After being abandoned first by her mother and then by her father, she and her brother were raised by relatives. Following her high school graduation in 1945, Ford relocated to New York at the age of 18, where she pursued work as both a model and an actress.

Her modeling career in New York included prominent commercial roles as The Jantzen Bathing Suit Girl, The Camay Bride, and The Parliament Cigarette Girl. On the acting side, she made regular television appearances on The Jackie Gleason Show and The Jimmy Durante Show, and in 1952 she appeared on Broadway in First Lady. MGM had also offered her a film contract during this period of her career.

Ford's path shifted dramatically after a modeling assignment in Bogotá, Colombia, where she encountered the celebrated matador Luis Miguel Dominguín and witnessed him perform in the ring. She subsequently left New York for Mexico to train as a bullfighter, forgoing the MGM contract. In 1954, Warner Bros. produced a documentary short about her training titled Beauty and the Bull. Ford went on to make history as the first American woman to fight on foot at the Plaza México, the world's largest bullfighting arena, and spent several years performing as a figura in Mexico and the Philippines.

MGM, still interested in Ford's story, dispatched a team of writers to meet with her and develop a feature film screenplay. Among them was John Meston, co-creator of the long-running radio and television series Gunsmoke. Ford married Meston shortly after they met and retired from bullfighting. Her first marriage, to actor David Ford — whose surname she retained — had lasted nine months following her arrival in New York. Her third husband is Scott Wolkoff, born May 27, 1947.

Ford later returned to acting, appearing in the Clint Eastwood-directed films Sudden Impact and Honkytonk Man, as well as television series including Cheers, L.A. Law, Melrose Place, and Felicity. Her voice work includes contributions to The Animatrix, the animated companion to The Matrix film trilogy, and numerous commercials.