She begins the show married to protagonist Don Draper (Jon Hamm); following a separation in the third season, the two remain divorced for the remainder of the series, but continue to share custody of their three children.

Blonde, beautiful, emotionally distant and immature, Betty spends the bulk of Mad Men slowly growing as a person amid the social and political turmoil of the 1960s.

She also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series twice along with the cast of Mad Men.

The script established that lead character Don Draper (Jon Hamm) was married, but only through dialogue, with no intention to show his home life.

Show creator Matthew Weiner then wrote two scenes featuring Betty, and Jones successfully auditioned for the part two days later.

[7] Betty Draper's character has also been compared to that of Peyton Place's Constance MacKenzie: "cold, remote, and emotionally unavailable.

Betty and Don Draper live in a large house in suburban Ossining, New York, with their children Sally and Bobby (Maxwell Huckabee).

In the second episode, set in the spring of 1960, Betty starts to see a psychiatrist to address repeated spells of numbness in her hands, which medical doctors have indicated are psychosomatic.

When preparing dinner the next day, an Utz commercial featuring Jimmy Barrett (Patrick Fischler) airs on television, reminding Betty of Don's infidelity.

Although she brings up the subject of abortion with her doctor and has sex with a random man she picks up at a bar at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, at the end of the episode she asks Don to return home, and tells him she is pregnant.

During Episode 3, Betty and Don attend a country club party hosted by Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and his new wife, Jane Siegel Sterling (Peyton List), where Betty meets Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley), who is later revealed to be an advisor to then-New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller.

She forces him to give her an explanation, and he haltingly tells her about his life as Dick Whitman, how he came to exchange dog tags with Lieutenant Don Draper, and his half-brother Adam's (Jay Paulson) suicide.

After President John F. Kennedy's assassination and Margaret Sterling's (Elizabeth Rice) wedding the following day, Betty meets with Henry, who confesses his desire to marry her.

After calling her a whore, he assures her that she "won't get a nickel" in the ensuing divorce, and he intends to seek sole custody of the children.

Glen's reappearance is the catalyst for Betty to finally insist to Henry that it's time for them to move because of the "low-caliber people" taking over the neighborhood, much to Sally's distress.

In the season finale "Tomorrowland", Betty and Francis are packing to move out of the Ossining house and into a new home in nearby Rye, New York.

When the children's nanny, Carla (Deborah Lacey), lets Glen into the house to say goodbye to Sally, Betty becomes upset and fires her, refusing to give her a reference.

In the episode, "Tea Leaves", Betty and her family are now shown to be living in a large Victorian estate in Rye, New York.

Betty is often seen eating very little in an attempt to lose weight but appears to weaken when she consumes whipped cream directly from the can and occasionally sneaks sweets.

Betty regresses further when she goes to Don's NYC apartment to pick up her kids and becomes jealous and bitter over the lovely, modern accommodations and Megan's lissome beauty.

However, when Sally begins menstruating for the first time while visiting her father in New York, she immediately returns to Rye and seeks out her mother for help.

After visiting the Lower East Side in search of one of Sally's friends and being snidely dismissed by one of the young people there as a "bottle blonde", she dyes her hair brunette.

In "The Quality of Mercy", Betty takes Sally on an overnight trip to interview at Miss Porter's boarding school.

In episode 5, "Runaways", Betty speaks her mind about the Vietnam War, causing a rough patch between herself and the conservative Henry during a dinner party.

In episode 13, "The Milk and Honey Route," Betty begins to feel dizzy and winded at school and falls down while climbing the stairs, fracturing her rib.

When she sees her doctor, Betty is shocked to discover that her recent lightheadedness is a sign of aggressive, advanced lung cancer that has begun to spread throughout her body.

[13][14][15] HuffPost named her as one of the Worst TV Characters in 2012, saying "her unchanging narcissism and her selfish petulance simply bore us to tears".

[33][34] The book examined the epidemic of unhappiness and dissatisfaction experienced by many upper middle class housewives in the 1960s (like Betty) due to their inability to form their own identity and life outside the home.

This cultural phenomenon is explored in the series through Betty, who, unlike female characters such as Peggy and Joan, is trapped and "exiled from the career world" due to her upbringing, social class, education, and marital status.

She was jointly nominated on six occasions for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2015, winning twice in 2009 and 2010.