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Actress Betty White, who managed a career of more than 80 years to become America's old sweetheart, winning numerous awards for her television roles, died last night, three weeks shy of her 100th birthday.
Her agent and close friend, Jeff Witzas, told People magazine, "Although Betty would soon be 100, I thought she would live forever.
In an entertainment industry that glorifies youth and an actress over 40 sees her career flicker, White was a paradoxical phenomenon: a star in her 60s and a pop culture icon in her 80s and 90s. At 92, she was still starring in a TV series, Hot in Cleveland, until it was cancelled in late 2014.
She had won Emmy Awards for her work on The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler oore Show. She said her longevity was due to a combination of good health, good luck and a love for her work.
It's incredible that I'm still in this job and you still tolerate me she had said in 2018, when she was honored with an Emmy Award for her entire career. It's incredible that you can stay in a career this long and still have people accept you. I wish that could happen at home, she added humorously.
White didn't hesitate to self-deprecate and joke about her sex life, making comments you wouldn't expect from a sweet, smiling, white-haired older woman. She was often asked if, after a career of so many years, there was anything left that she still wanted to do, and she would reply: Robert Redford.
Betty Marion White was born on January 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois. Her family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, and she attended Beverly Hills High School. She began her radio career in the late 1930s.
\NIn 1939 she made her small screen debut, singing on an experimental Los Angeles television channel. After serving in the American Women's Volunteer Service during World War II, she became a regular on Hollywood on Television, a daily, five-hour variety show. A few years later she founded a production company - something groundbreaking for a woman at the time - and co-creator, producer and star of the 1950s TV series Life With Elizabeth. Throughout the `60s and `70s she appeared regularly on television.
In 1963 she married for the third and final time, the host of the game show Password, Allen Landen. She enjoyed enormous success playing the role of the conniving, lecherous Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, whose motto was that a woman who did a good job in the kitchen would surely reap the benefits in other parts of the house. She won two Best Supporting Actor Emmys for her performance, in 1975 and 1976. White added another Emmy to her collection in 1986, for The Golden Girls, starring four elderly women living together in Miami.
She was nominated six more times for her role in that series, where she played the sweet, naive widow Rose Neeland. This was followed by roles in series, movies, talk show appearances, commercials By 2009 she was ubiquitous, with frequent television appearances and a role in The Proposal with Sandra Bullock.
A young fan started a Facebook campaign asking for White to host Saturday Night Live ended up appearing in every sketch on the show and winning another Emmy.
The Associated Press named her artist of the year twice and in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in 2011, when White was 89, she was named America`s most popular celebrity with 86% of the vote.
Her wit and preparedness were her trump cards when she hosted Betty White`s Off Their Rockers, a hidden-camera show where elderly actors played pranks on young people. Who would have ever imagined that not only would I be healthy but I would still be invited to work. That's a privilege to still have a job is a great privilege, she had commented in a 2015 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
White had no children. She loved animals and fought for them. She once turned down a role in the film It's Not Better Because in one scene they threw a dog down a garbage chute.
Source: Cyprus Times
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