About This Stamp
The U.S. Postal Service honors Betty White with a new stamp graced with her likeness and exuding her spritely sense of fun. Often called the first lady of television, her pioneering broadcasting career spanned more than eight decades. White achieved great fame with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls — a couple of TV history’s most beloved and groundbreaking situation comedies — and remained phenomenally popular as an entertainer well into her nineties. As an avid animal ally, White used the bright light of her stardom to advocate for creatures great and small.
The Betty White stamp, sold on a pane of 20, features a digitally created portrait of the cherished star against a violet-colored background and, in a lighter shade, bubbly spots that befit her sparkling personality. She is portrayed wearing a polka-dotted blue top. “Betty White,” is printed in white near the bottom of the stamp artwork. “FOREVER USA” is printed just below, in violet. Her name also appears centered atop the white selvage, also in violet.
White’s broadcast debut was on a radio drama in 1930, and she appeared in an experimental television broadcast in 1939, when that medium was in its infancy. Her regular TV appearances began in 1949 with Hollywood on Television, a local program in Los Angeles; she was live on the air for more than 30 hours a week. Soon renamed The Betty White Show, it went national with a half-hour version in 1954.
White was one of the first female producers of a national situation comedy. In the early 1950s, she starred, co-wrote, and co-created a domestic sitcom, Life With Elizabeth, followed a few years later by another, Date With the Angels. Of her many contributions to entertainment, White is best known for two of the greatest sitcoms in TV history: The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s and The Golden Girls from 1985 to 1992. She was also in demand for TV dramas, game shows, talk shows, and cinematic films.
White’s status as a cultural icon surged as she approached age 90. By popular demand, she became the oldest-ever guest host of Saturday Night Live in 2010, winning her fifth and final national Primetime Emmy Award. That year, she also began a six-season run on Hot in Cleveland, yet another hit ensemble sitcom.
Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp with original art by Dale Stephanos.
The Betty White stamp is being issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce rate.
Stamp Designer, Stamp Art Director
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.
Artist
Dale Stephanos
Raised in the Boston area, Dale Stephanos has been a full-time professional illustrator for more than thirty years. His client list is extensive and includes magazines such as Rolling Stone, TIME, and Sports Illustrated; newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Village Voice; the U.S. Open; and many others.
Stephanos’ work has been featured in numerous exhibits, and in 2017, he opened his own gallery in Boston. He has been honored by the Society of Illustrators, Illustrators West, American Illustration, Communication Arts, and Lürzer's Archive’s 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide 2016.
When he’s not working on illustration assignments for magazines or painting portraits for private commissions, Stephanos teaches at both Suffolk University in Boston and Lyme Academy College of Fine Art in Connecticut.
He now resides in the wilds of southeastern Massachusetts with his family and a cat with no name. A U.S. postage stamp commission has been a lifelong dream for Stephanos. The 2025 Betty White issuance is his first project for the United States Postal Service.