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In a youth-driven entertainment industry where
an actress over 40 faces career twilight, White was an anomaly
who was a star in her 60s and a pop culture phenomenon in her
80s and 90s.
Playing on her eminent likability, White was still starring in a
TV sitcom, "Hot in Cleveland," at age 92 until it was canceled
in late 2014.
White said her longevity was a result of good health, good
fortune and loving her work.
"It's incredible that I'm still in this business and that you
are still putting up with me," White said in an appearance at
the 2018 Emmy Awards ceremony, where she was honored for her
long career. "It's incredible that you can stay in a career this
long and still have people put up with you. I wish they did that
at home."
White was not afraid to mock herself and throw out a joke about
her sex life or a snarky crack that one would not expect from a
sweet-smiling, white-haired elderly woman. She was frequently
asked if, after such a long career, there was anything she still
wanted to do and the standard response was "Robert Redford."
"She was great at defying expectation. She managed to grow very
old and somehow, not old enough. We’ll miss you, Betty," former
costar and friend Ryan Reynolds wrote in a Twitter post.
"Old age hasn’t diminished her," the New York Times wrote in
2013. "It has given her a second wind."
Minutes after news emerged of her death, U.S. President Joe
Biden told reporters: "That's a shame. She was a lovely lady."
His wife Jill Biden said: "Who didn't love Betty White? We're so
sad about her death."
Betty Marion White was born on Jan. 17, 1922, in Oak Park,
Illinois, and her family moved to Los Angeles during the Great
Depression, where she attended Beverly Hills High School.
A DEBUT IN THE 1930s
White started her entertainment career in radio in the late
1930s and by 1939 had made her TV debut singing on an
experimental channel in Los Angeles. After serving in the
American Women's Voluntary Service, which helped the U.S. effort
during World War Two, she was a regular on "Hollywood on
Television," a daily five-hour live variety show, in 1949.
A few years later she became a pioneering woman in television by
co-founding a production company and serving as a co-creator,
producer and star of the 1950s sitcom "Life with Elizabeth."
Through the 1960s and early '70s White was seen regularly on
television, hosting coverage of the annual Tournament of Rose
Parade and appearing on game shows such as "Match Game" and
"Password." She married "Password" host Allen Ludden, her third
and final husband, in 1963.
White reached a new level of success on "The Mary Tyler Moore
Show," playing the host of a home-making television show, the
snide, lusty Sue Ann Nivens, whose credo was "a woman who does a
good job in the kitchen is sure to reap her rewards in other
parts of the house." White won best-supporting actress Emmys for
the role in 1975 and 1976.
She won another Emmy in 1986 for "The Golden Girls," a sitcom
about four older women living together in Miami that featured an
age demographic rarely highlighted on American television. White
also was nominated for an Emmy six other times for her portrayal
of the widowed Rose Nylund, a sweet, naive and ditzy
Midwesterner, on the show, which ran from 1985 to 1992 and was
one of the top-rated series of its time.
After a less successful sequel to "The Golden Girls" came a
series of small movie parts, talk-show appearances and one-off
television roles, including one that won her an Emmy for a guest
appearance on "The John Larroquette Show."
By 2009 she was becoming ubiquitous with more frequent
television appearances and a role in the Sandra Bullock film
"The Proposal." She starred in a popular Snickers candy
commercial that aired during the Super Bowl, taking a brutal hit
in a mud puddle in a football game.
A young fan started a Facebook campaign to have White host
"Saturday Night Live" and she ended up appearing in every sketch
on the show and winning still another Emmy for it.
The Associated Press voted her entertainer of the year in 2010
and a 2011 Reuters/Ipsos poll found that White, then 89, was the
most popular and trusted celebrity in America with an 86%
favorability rating.
White's witty and brassy demeanor came in handy as host of
"Betty White's Off Their Rockers," a hidden-camera show in which
elderly actors pulled pranks on younger people.
"Who would ever dream that I would not only be this healthy, but
still be invited to work?" White said in a 2015 interview with
Oprah Winfrey.
White, who had no children, worked for animal causes. She once
turned down a role in the movie "As Good as It Gets" because of
a scene in which a dog was thrown in a garbage chute.
She looked forward to her milestone birthday, writing on Twitter
just three days before her death, "My 100th birthday ... I
cannot believe it is coming up."
(Writing by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw
and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Diane Craft, Howard Goller and Lisa
Shumaker)
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