Allen Ludden

Allen Ludden
Ludden on the game show Stumpers!, 1976
Born	Allen Packard Ellsworth (1917-10-05)October 5, 1917 Mineral Point, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	June 9, 1981(1981-06-09) (aged 63) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Stomach cancer
Alma mater	University of Texas
Occupation	Game show host, television personality, singer
Years active	1949–1981
Spouse(s)	Margaret McGloin (m. 1943; her death 1961) Betty White (m. 1963; his death 1981)

Allen Ellsworth Ludden (October 5, 1917 – June 9, 1981) was an American television personality, emcee and game show host, perhaps best known for having hosted various incarnations of the game show Password between 1961 and 1980.

Allen Ludden, born Allen Packard Ellsworth, was the first child of Elmer Ellsworth, a Nebraska native living in Mineral Point, Wisconsin and working as an ice dealer; and his wife Leila M. Allen, a Wisconsin native and housewife. Elmer Ellsworth died the next winter at age 26, a victim of the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic, on January 6, 1919. When Allen was about five years old, Leila Ellsworth married Homer Ludden, Jr., an electrical engineer and the son of H.D. Ludden, the town physician, a Chicago native who had practiced in Mineral Point since 1906. Allen was given his adoptive father's name and became Allen Ellsworth Ludden. The family lived briefly in the Wisconsin towns of Janesville, Elkhorn, Antigo and Waupaca before moving to Texas when Allen was still a small child.

An English and dramatics major at the University of Texas, Ludden graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1940 and received his Master of Arts in English from the same university in 1941. He served in the U.S. Army as officer in charge of entertainment in the Pacific theater, received a Bronze Star, and was discharged with the rank of captain in 1946. During the late 1940s and early 1950s he carved out a career as an adviser for youth in teen magazine columns and on radio. His radio show for teenagers, Mind Your Manners, received a Peabody Award in 1950.