Betty White, Beloved Star of ‘The Golden Girls,' Dies at 99
She launched her TV career in daytime talk shows when the medium was still in its infancy
By Frazier Moore ••
NBCUniversal Media, LLC
The “Hot in Cleveland” and “The Golden Girls” star died weeks shy of her 100th birthday, according to her agent.
Betty White, whose saucy, up-for-anything charm made her a television mainstay for more than 60 years, whether as a man-crazy TV hostess on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” or the loopy housemate on “The Golden Girls,” has died. She was 99.
White’s death was confirmed Friday by Jeff Witjas, her longtime agent and friend. She would have turned 100 on Jan. 17.
“I truly never thought she was going to pass away," Witjas told The Associated Press. “She meant the world to me as a friend. She was the most positive person I've ever known.”
Witjas said White had been staying close to her Los Angeles home during the pandemic out of caution but had no diagnosed illness. It was unclear if she died Thursday night or Friday, he said.
“We loved Betty White,” first lady Jill Biden said as she and President Joe Biden left a restaurant in Wilmington, Delaware. Added the president: “Ninety-nine years old. As my mother would say, ‘God love her.’”
“She was great at defying expectation,” Ryan Reynolds, who starred alongside her in the comedy “The Proposal,” tweeted. “She managed to grow very old and somehow, not old enough. We’ll miss you, Betty.”
White launched her TV career in daytime talk shows when the medium was still in its infancy and endured well into the age of cable and streaming. Her combination of sweetness and edginess gave life to a roster of quirky characters in shows from the sitcom “Life With Elizabeth” in the early 1950s to oddball Rose Nylund in “The Golden Girls” in the ’80s to “Boston Legal,” which ran from 2004 to 2008.
But it was in 2010 that White’s stardom erupted as never before.
In a Snickers commercial that premiered during that year’s Super Bowl telecast, she impersonated an energy-sapped dude getting tackled during a backlot football game.
“Mike, you’re playing like Betty White out there,” jeered one of his chums. White, flat on the ground and covered in mud, fired back, “That’s not what your girlfriend said!”
The instantly-viral video helped spark a Facebook campaign called “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!,” whose half-million fans led to her co-hosting “Saturday Night Live” in a much-watched, much-hailed edition that Mother’s Day weekend. The appearance won her a seventh Emmy award.
A month later, cable’s TV Land premiered “Hot In Cleveland,” the network’s first original scripted series, which starred Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick as three past-their-prime show-biz veterans who move to Cleveland to escape the youth obsession of Hollywood. They move into a home being looked after by an elderly Polish widow — a character, played by White, who was meant to appear only in the pilot episode.
But White stole the show, and the salty Elka Ostrovsky became a key part of the series, an immediate hit. She was voted the Entertainer of the Year by members of The Associated Press.
“It’s ridiculous,” White said of the honor. “They haven’t caught on to me, and I hope they never do.”
By then, White had not only become the hippest star around, but also a role model for how to grow old joyously.
“Don’t try to be young,” she told The AP. “Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won’t live long enough to find out about, but I’m still curious about them.”
Such was her popularity that even White’s birthday became a national event: In January 2012, NBC aired “Betty White’s 90th Birthday Party” as a star-studded prime-time special. She would later appear in such series as “Bones” and "Fireside Chat With Esther” and in 2019 gave voice to one of the toys, “Bitey White,” in “Toy Story 4.”
In a People cover story on White's upcoming 100th birthday, the magazine's Jan. 10 issue touted White's secrets for longevity and quoted her as saying, “Funny never gets old."
Witjas said it was as if Betty insisted on a last laugh: “It's a wonderful tribute, and she has to pull this."
A film honoring White on her birthday will be released as planned for a one-day showing in more than 900 theaters nationwide, said Steve Boettcher and Mike Trinklein, producers of “Betty White: 100 Years Young — A Birthday Celebration."
“We will go forward with our plans to show the film on Jan. 17 in hopes our film will provide a way for all who loved her to celebrate her life — and experience what made her such a national treasure,” they said in a statement.
White remained youthful in part through her skill at playing bawdy or naughty while radiating niceness. The horror spoof “Lake Placid” and “The Proposal” were marked by her characters’ surprisingly salty language. And her character Catherine Piper killed a man with a skillet on “Boston Legal.”
But she almost wasn’t cast as “Happy Homemaker” Sue Ann Nivens in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in 1973. She and her husband, Allen Ludden, were close friends of Moore and Moore’s then-husband, producer Grant Tinker. It was feared that if White failed on the show, which already was a huge hit, it would be embarrassing for all four. But CBS casting head Ethel Winant declared White the logical choice. Originally planned as a one-shot appearance, the role of Sue Ann (which humorously foreshadowed Martha Stewart) lasted until Moore ended the series in 1977.
“While she’s icky-sweet on her cooking show, Sue is really a piranha type,” White once said. The role brought her two Emmys as supporting actress in a comedy series.
In 1985, White starred on NBC with Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty in “The Golden Girls.” Its cast of mature actors, playing single women in Miami retirement, presented a gamble in a youth-conscious industry. But it proved a solid hit and lasted until 1992.
White played Rose, a gentle, dim widow who managed to misinterpret most situations. She drove her roommates crazy with off-the-wall tales of childhood in fictional St. Olaf, Minnesota, an off-kilter version of Lake Wobegon.
The role won her another Emmy, and she reprised it in a short-lived spinoff, “The Golden Palace.”
After her co-star Arthur died in 2009, White told “Entertainment Tonight”: “She showed me how to be very brave in playing comedy. I’ll miss that courage.”
White’s other TV series included “Mama’s Family,” as Vicki Lawrence’s daughter; “Just Men,” a game show in which women tried to predict answers to questions directed to male celebrities; and “Ladies Man,” as the catty mother of Alfred Molina.
“Just Men” brought her a daytime Emmy, while she won a fourth prime time Emmy in 1996 for a guest shot on “The John Larroquette Show.”
She also appeared in numerous miniseries and TV movies and made her film debut as a female U.S. senator in Otto Preminger’s 1962 Capitol Hill drama “Advise and Consent.”
White began her television career as $50-a-week sidekick to a local Los Angeles TV personality in 1949. She was hired for a local daytime show starring Al Jarvis, the best-known disc jockey in Los Angeles.
It was then she got a tip to start lying about her age.
“We are so age-conscious in this country,” she said in a 2011 interview with The Associated Press. “It’s silly, but that’s the way we are. So I was told, ‘Knock four years off right now. You’ll be blessing yourself down the road.’
“I was born in 1922. So I thought, ‘I must always remember that I was born in 1926.’ But then I would have to do the math. Finally, I decided to heck with it.”
White proved to be a natural for the new medium. She was bright, pretty and likable, with a dimpled, eye-crinkling smile. A 1951 Los Angeles Times headline said: “Betty White Hailed as TV’s Busiest Gal.”
“I did that show 5½ hours a day, six days a week, for 4½ years,” she recalled in 1975. Jarvis was replaced by actor Eddie Albert, and when he went to Europe for the film “Roman Holiday,” she headed the show.
A sketch she had done with Jarvis turned into a syndicated series, “Life With Elizabeth,” which won her first Emmy. For a time she did interviews on “The Betty White Show” in the daytime, filmed the series at night and often turned up on a late-night talk show. She also appeared on commercials and every New Year’s narrated the Pasadena Rose Parade.
With the glib tongue and quick responses nurtured in the Jarvis years, she was a welcome guest on “I’ve Got a Secret,” “To Tell the Truth,” “What’s My Line” and other game shows — all the way up to the 2008 “Million Dollar Password,” which revived the game once hosted by Ludden, whom she had met when a contestant on his original “Password.”
That was in 1961, and the next year, while touring in summer theater during television’s off season, she starred with Ludden — by then a widower with three children — in the comedy “Critic’s Choice.”
White, who had claimed to be “militantly single” since a 1947-1949 marriage, weakened in her resolve.
“I had always said on `The Tonight Show’ and everywhere else that I would never get married again,” she told a reporter in 1963. “But Allen outnumbered me. He started in and even the children got in the act. And I surrendered — willingly.”
The marriage lasted from 1963 until his death from cancer in 1981.
Off-screen, White tirelessly raised money for animal causes such as the Morris Animal Foundation and the Los Angeles Zoo. In 1970-1971, she wrote, produced and hosted a syndicated TV show, “The Pet Set,” to which celebrities brought their dogs and cats. She wrote a 1983 book titled “Betty White’s Pet Love: How Pets Take Care of Us,” and, in 2011, published “Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo.”
Her devotion to pets was such that she declined a plum role in the hit 1997 movie “As Good As It Gets.” She objected to a scene in which Jack Nicholson drops a small dog down a laundry chute.
In her 2011 book “If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t),” White explained the origins of her love for dogs. During the Depression, her dad made radios to sell to make extra money. But since few people had money to buy the radios, he willingly traded them for dogs, which, housed in kennels in the backyard, at times numbered as many as 15 and made White’s happy childhood even happier.
Are there any critters she doesn’t like?
“No,” White told the AP. “Anything with a leg on each corner.”
ABC Photo Archives via Getty Images
Betty White smiles in a 1958 promotional photo. White, a beloved actor whose small screen career spanned well over eight decades, died 17 days before her 100th birthday.
Herb Ball/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank
Betty White holds her dog Bandy at their home in this 1954 snap. White is a well known animal lover, having based much of her free time fundraising for animal causes and declining roles that features animal cruelty.
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Betty White jokes around in a May 5, 1957, promotional photoshoot for ABC’s “Date with the Angels.” Her quirky and saucy personality endeared her to the American public early into her career.
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Actor Betty White visits with the Los Angeles Angels as part of a promotion for ABC’s “Date with the Angels,” July 2, 1957, in which she starred alongside Bill Williams.
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Betty White smiles with her husband, game show host and actor Allen Ludden, in a 1960 photo. The pair were married from 1963 until Ludden’s death to cancer in 1981.
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Betty White smiles with her husband, game show host and actor Allen Ludden, in their home on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1972. The pair were married from 1963 until Ludden’s death to cancer in 1981.
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Betty White and her husband Allen Ludden continue a two-year gin rummy battle in which she’s ahead by a cumulative 6,000 points, Westchester, New York, April 29, 1965. They do it professionally on TV. He’s the master of ceremonies on “Password,” and she makes frequent guest appearances on game shows. The couple plays games to relax at home.
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From left: Edward Asner, Betty White, Mary Tyler Moore and Ted Knight hold their Emmy Awards at the 28th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on May 17, 1976, Los Angeles, California. The four played Lou Grant, Sue Ann Nivens, Mary Richards and Ted Baxter for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” respectively.
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Actor Betty White on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, with then guest-host David Letterman, March 26, 1979.
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Betty White walks towards the grave of her late husband Allen Ludden, in the company of Ludden’s mother. The 63-year-old died of cancer in Los Angeles on Tuesday and was buried in Mineral Point, Wisconsin – the town where he was born.
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From left: Betty White as Ellen Harper Jackson, Vicki Lawrence as Thelma “Mama” Crowley Harper, and Rue McClanahan as Aunt Fran Crowley for “Mama’s Family,” July 1983.
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From left: Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Estelle Getty and Betty White pose for a promotional poster for the first season of “Golden Girls,” April 22, 1985. The four would play the iconic quartet Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak, Blanche Devereaux, Sophia Petrillo and Rose Nylund from 1985 until the series’ end in 1992.
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Betty White, Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan during the The 6th Annual “TV Land Awards” in Santa Monica, California, June 8, 2008.
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Actors Betty White and Mary Tyler Moore present Tina Fey the Outstanding Comedy Series award for “30 Rock” onstage during the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards held at Nokia Theatre on Sept. 21, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.
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Betty White seen in a May 31, 2009, photo. She still keeps an active career at 87, with her latest project playing an aging, truth telling, offthewall grandmother for “The Proposal.”
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Sandra Bullock and Betty White goof off onstage during the 2010 Teen Choice Awards at Gibson Amphitheatre on Aug. 8, 2010 in Universal City, California.
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Ryan Reynolds and Betty White appear as guests on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Sept. 22, 2010. The two actors, known for their off-beat, saucy personalities on and off the screen, amused themselves by referring to each other as “a past relationship” for the benefits of celebrity entertainment.
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Betty White arrives at the premiere of Touchstone Pictures’ “You Again,” Sept. 22, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. She remained a “national treasure” for her roles in “Golden Girls” and her off-beat, quirky personality with fans of all ages.
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Thomas Tidwell, left, and Hank Kashdan of the U.S. Forest Service pose for a photo with Betty White who was named an honorary Forest Ranger at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Nov. 9, 2010 in Washington, D.C.
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Betty White arrives at “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” Los Angeles Premiere at Universal Studios Hollywood on Feb. 19, 2012, in Universal City, California. She plays Grammy Norma on the animated film at the age of 90.
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Betty White, next to Lisa Vanderpump and Anderson Cooper, looks on as a man jumps out of a birthday cake at CBS Studios, Jan. 8, 2013 ,in New York City.
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Betty White accepts the award for Favorite TV Icon during The 41st Annual People’s Choice Awards at Nokia Theatre LA Live on Jan. 7, 2015, in Los Angeles, California.
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Betty White accepts Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award onstage during the 42nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on April 26, 2015 in Burbank, California.
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Betty White’s star along the Hollywood Stars Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California, seen on Sept. 10, 2017.
Then what about snakes?
“Ohhh, I LOVE snakes!”
She was born Betty Marion White in Oak Park, Illinois, and the family moved to Los Angeles when she was a toddler.
“I’m an only child, and I had a mother and dad who never drew a straight line: They just thought funny,” she told The Associated Press in 2015. “We’d sit around the breakfast table and then we’d start kicking it around. My dad was a salesman and he would come home with jokes. He’d say, `Sweetheart, you can take THAT one to school. But I wouldn’t take THIS one.′ We had such a wonderful time.”
Her early ambition was to be a writer, and she wrote her grammar school graduation play, giving herself the leading role.
At Beverly Hills High School, her ambition turned to acting, and she appeared in several school plays. Her parents hoped she’d go to college, but instead she took roles in a small theater and played bit parts in radio dramas.
Explaining in 2011 how she kept up her frantic pace even as an octogenarian, she explained that she only needed four hours of sleep each night.
And when asked how she had managed to be universally beloved during her decades-spanning career, she summed up with a dimpled smile: “I just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It’s that simple.”
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An early television pioneer whose acting career spanned more than eight decades, Betty White died on Dec. 31, 2021 at the age of 99. She would have turned 100 in 17 days.
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Sabine Schmitz, the first and only female race car driver to win the annual 24-hour race on the famed Nürburgring circuit and a renowned TV personality, died March 16, 2020. She was 51. Schmitz had been ill with cancer since 2017 and continued racing until 2019. The 24-hour race's organizers said she died Tuesday following “a years-long battle with her disease.”
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American professional boxer "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler died on March 13, 2021, at 66. Quiet with a brooding public persona, Hagler fought 67 times over 14 years as a pro out of Brockton, Massachusetts, finishing 62-3-2 with 52 knockouts.
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Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio host and one of the most influential voices of American right-wing politics, died Feb. 17, 2021, at age 70. Limbaugh had been battling advanced lung cancer after he announced his diagnosis in January 2020. His radio show ran for more than three decades.
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Larry Flynt, the controversial publisher who founded “Hustler” magazine, died on Feb. 10, 2021, at the age of 78. Flynt launched “Hustler” in the 1970s, a print extension of his adult club of the same name that featured nude hostesses.
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In this Nov. 18, 2015, file photo, singer Mary Wilson performs at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles, California. Wilson, one of the founders of Motown group The Supremes, died on Feb. 8, 2021, at age 76.
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U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Texas, died on Feb. 7, 2021, after contracting COVID-19 while fighting a prolonged battle against lung cancer. The 67-year-old became the first sitting member of Congress to die after contracting COVID-19.
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Millie Hughes-Fulford, a trailblazing astronaut and scientist who became the first female payload specialist to fly in space for NASA, died following a years-long battle with cancer, her family said. She died on Feb. 2, 2021, at 75.
Photographed here with then-President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush, then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz walks along the White House Colonnade in Washington D.C., on Jan. 9, 1985. Shultz, a titan of American academia, business and diplomacy, died on Feb. 6, 2021, at age 100.
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Hall of Famer Leon Spinks, pictured here at the Boxing Hall of Fame parade in Canastota, New York, in 2011, died on Feb. 5, 2021. The 67-year-old, who once beat Muhammad Ali to become the heavyweight champion, had been diagnosed with several forms of cancer.
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Christopher Plummer, the prolific actor who first came into prominence as Captain von Trapp in the film "The Sound of Music," has died at 91. Plummer remained active in Hollywood for over five decades, having played notable parts in recent films like "Knives Out," "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," and even as the voice of the villain in "Up."
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Hal Holbrook holds his Emmy Awards at The 26th Emmy Awards on May 28, 1974, at Pantages Theatre, Los Angeles, California. The five-time Emmy awards winner, best known for his portrayals as Mark Twain and the Watergate whistleblower "Deep Throat," died at the age of 95 on Feb. 2, 2021.
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Dustin Diamond, best known for playing Screech on the hit ’90s sitcom "Saved by the Bell," died at age 44 from stage four lung cancer on Feb. 1, 2021.
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Pioneering actor Cicely Tyson earned a reputation for portraying strong Black women in a career that spanned more than seven decades. She earned an Oscar nomination for her role in “Sounder” (1972) and a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88. Tyson died Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021. She was 96.
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Cloris Leachman, known for playing Phyllis Lindstrom on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and her own spinoff, died Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021, of natural causes in Encinitas, California, according to a representative. Leachman won a best-supporting actress Oscar for "The Last Picture Show" and multiple Emmys. She was 94.
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Atlanta Braves' Hank Aaron, seen here during spring training with the Braves in 1967, had died at the age of 86 on Jan. 22. The 25-time All-Star Hall of Famer led the Braves to a World Series pennant in 1957, and after retiring as a player, served the same organization as an executive in 1986.
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In this 2006 photo, John Reilly attends NBC's "Days of Our Lives" and "Passions" pre-Emmy party. Reilly, known for his roles in "General Hospital" and "Beverly Hills, 90210," died at age 84, his daughter announced on Instagram on Jan. 10, 2021.
Tommy Lasorda poses during a 1980 photo portrait session at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Lasorda, who had spent seven decades with the Dodgers as a player, scout, manager and executive, is most known for his time managing the team from 1976 to 1996, leading them to two World Series wins and two World Series losses. He died at 93, according to the Dodgers.
