Would sometimes sell tickets at his own box office. Reportedly, he was delighted when a patron bluffed: "You'd better give me good seats because I'm a personal friend of George White!".
He claimed that Broadway's nickname, "The Great White Way", had been coined for him.
Beyond the theatre, playing the horses was White's sole passion. In the 1920s he once lost $70,000 ($1 million in today's dollars) on a single race.
In July 1946 White was charged with vehicular manslaughter for a hit-and-run auto accident that killed a newlywed couple. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and served nine months at a prison farm near San Diego, CA.
During the 1936 edition of his "Scandals" Broadway revue, White punched out singer Rudy Vallee over a pay dispute. Then he fired him. The irony was that Vallee himself was notoriously free with his fists, and was physically much bigger than White.