Image Credit: Carin Baer/AMC
Is there a more polarizing figure on Mad Men than Betty Draper? (Sorry Henry, I’ll never buy her as a Francis.) Some feel deeply for her caged bird. Others only see her sharp talons and wish for Betty a painless head-on car crash into an Ossinning oak tree. The brittle woman, taught early on to resist passion, inspires nothing but. What a shock then to read in a recent interview in W magazine with January Jones — whose acting ability is a whole separate source of debate amongst Mad Men fans; is she one-note or a master of the icy vacant glare? — that there was no Betty Draper written into Matthew Weiner’s pilot script. “He had no intention of showing Don Draper’s home life,” said Jones. “I read for Peggy two times — it was between me and Elisabeth Moss, who eventually got the part. At the end of the scene, there was a casual mention that Don was married. Matt went home that night and wrote two scenes that featured Betty.”
