Meet “Miss Patience”…Television’s First Stand In (+ Rare Video)

This is inside television’s first studio…3H at NBC in New York in May 1936. If you look closely, you can see that “Miss Patience” is actually a mannequin, which is why she was so “patient”.

Miss Patience came to be, when Betty Goodwin, television’s first female announcer ( who you’ll hear in the video), and first fashion show consultant, developed blisters on her cheeks from modeling clothes and makeup for hours of camera tests, under the scorching heat of the 1000 foot candles of light it took for the Iconoscope cameras to get the picture.

Betty had been a newspaper reporter in Seattle, but moved to NYC in the depths of the depression to take a job in radio with NBC. After working as a production assistant at the 1936 political conventions, she was reassigned to kind of the same position in the new Television Department, which as the time was very hush-hush.

When RCA set up the experimental Studio 3H in 1935, they had kept it under wraps as competition for tech secrets was fierce. By July of ’36, RCA had decided to go public with their project, and on July 7, their first public broadcast was made from this studio for a group of radio station owners, which were NBC affiliates, watching on the 62nd floor of 30 Rock.

In this video, cued to start at Betty’s narration of a fashion show, you will see historic footage from Studio 3H, captured by a Pathe newsreel cameraman. Enjoy! -Bobby Ellerbee

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