{"id":1176261,"date":"2021-12-31T19:04:21","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T00:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1176261"},"modified":"2021-12-31T19:04:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T00:04:23","slug":"betty-white-an-ageless-tv-star-was-americas-sweetheart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/betty-white-an-ageless-tv-star-was-americas-sweetheart\/","title":{"rendered":"Betty White, An Ageless TV Star, Was America\u2019s Sweetheart"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbetty-white-an-ageless-tv-star-was-americas-sweetheart%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1176261&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/bettywhite2-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Betty White was America\u2019s naughty sweetheart.<\/p>\n<p>With a wholesome smile and a dirty joke she charmed millions of viewers decade after decade, rising from $50-a-week to ageless superstar who advised her fans, \u201cDon\u2019t try to be young. Just open your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Even in her 90s, in defiance of time and expectations, she still enjoyed a cocktail before dinner, a weekly poker night and wide-eyed interest in the world around her. \u201cThere are so many things I won\u2019t live long enough to find out about, but I\u2019m still curious about them,\u201d she declared.<\/p>\n<p>It helped that she only needed four hours of sleep each night.<\/p>\n<p>White, who died Friday at 99 just weeks before her birthday, launched her TV career when the medium was still in its infancy and never lost touch.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Her saucy, up-for-anything appeal certified her as a television mainstay. Her combination of sweetness and spice gave life to a roster of quirky characters in shows from the sitcom \u201cLife With Elizabeth\u201d in the early 1950s to man-crazy TV hostess Sue Ann on \u201cThe Mary Tyler Moore Show\u201d in the 1970s, from loopy housemate Rose Nylund in \u201cThe Golden Girls\u201d in the \u201980s to courtroom drama \u201cBoston Legal,\u201d which ran from 2004 to 2008.<\/p>\n<p>But all that proved to be only a warmup for even greater stardom in the new millennium when White\u2019s stardom erupted, by public demand, as it never had before.<\/p>\n<p>In a Snickers commercial that premiered during the 2010 Super Bowl telecast, she impersonated an energy-sapped dude getting tackled during a backlot football game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMike, you\u2019re playing like Betty White out there,\u201d sneered one of his chums. White, knocked flat on the ground and covered in mud, fired back, \u201cThat\u2019s not what your girlfriend said!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The instantly-viral video helped spark a Facebook campaign called \u201cBetty White to Host SNL (please?)!,\u201d whose half-million fans led to her co-hosting \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d in a much-watched, much-hailed edition on Mother\u2019s Day weekend. The appearance won her a seventh Emmy award.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>A month later, the TV Land cable network premiered \u201cHot In Cleveland,\u201d its first original scripted series, which starred Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick as three 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 \u2014 a character, played by White, who was meant to appear only in the pilot episode.<\/p>\n<p>But once again, White worked her magic. The salty Elka Ostrovsky became a key part of the series, which became an instant hit.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Then she was voted the Entertainer of the Year by members of The Associated Press. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d scoffed White, self-deprecating, at the honor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey haven\u2019t caught on to me, and I hope they never do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such was her popularity that even White\u2019s birthday became a national event: In 2012, NBC aired \u201cBetty White\u2019s 90th Birthday Party\u201d as a star-studded prime-time special. She was still working well into her 90s, including serving as one of the voices for the toys, \u201cBitey White,\u201d in \u201cToy Story 4.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>One thing that made White seem forever young was her skill at playing bawdy or naughty while still radiating niceness.<\/p>\n<p>The horror spoof \u201cLake Placid\u201d and the comedy \u201cThe Proposal\u201d were marked by her characters\u2019 surprisingly salty language. Her character Catherine Piper killed a man with a skillet on \u201cBoston Legal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But she almost wasn\u2019t cast as \u201cHappy Homemaker\u201d Sue Ann Nivens in \u201cThe Mary Tyler Moore Show\u201d in 1973. She and her husband, Allen Ludden, were close friends of Moore and Moore\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>But CBS casting head Ethel Winant declared White the logical choice. Originally planned as a one-shot appearance, the role of Sue Ann lasted until Moore ended the series in 1977.<\/p>\n<p>White made comic hay as Sue Ann, for instance with a line explaining that she planned to spend Christmas with a sister in Florida: \u201cShe\u2019s kind of a creep,\u201d Sue Ann noted sweetly, \u201cbut she\u2019s got a pool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The role brought her two Emmys as supporting actress in a comedy series.<\/p>\n<p>In 1985, White starred on NBC with Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty in \u201cThe Golden Girls.\u201d Its cast of mature actresses, playing single women in Miami retirement, presented a gamble in a youth-obsessed industry, but it proved a solid hit and lasted until 1992.<\/p>\n<p>White played Rose, a gentle, dim-bulb widow who managed to misinterpret most situations. She drove her housemates crazy with off-the-wall tales of her childhood in the fictional backwoods town of St. Olaf, Minnesota<\/p>\n<p>For example, Rose\u2019s explanation of the annual talent show, which was highlighted by a herring juggling act:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomebody actually juggled herring?\u201d her friends asked skeptically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo!\u201d Rose corrected them. \u201cIt was the herring that did the juggling: tiny little Ginseng knives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That role won her another Emmy, and she reprised it in a short-lived spinoff, \u201cThe Golden Palace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>White\u2019s other TV series included \u201cMama\u2019s Family,\u201d as Vicki Lawrence\u2019s irascible mother; \u201cJust Men,\u201d a game show in which women tried to predict answers to questions directed to male celebrities; and \u201cLadies Man,\u201d as the catty mother of Alfred Molina.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust Men\u201d brought her a daytime Emmy, while she won a fourth prime-time Emmy in 1996 for a guest shot on \u201cThe John Larroquette Show.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She also appeared in numerous miniseries and TV movies and made her film debut as a U.S. senator in Otto Preminger\u2019s 1962 Capitol Hill drama \u201cAdvise and Consent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She was born Betty Marion White in 1922 in Oak Park, Illinois, and moved to Los Angeles when she was a toddler.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m an only child, and I had a mother and dad who never drew a straight line: They just thought funny,\u201d she told The Associated Press in 2015. \u201cWe\u2019d sit around the breakfast table and then we\u2019d start kicking it around. My dad was a salesman and he would come home with jokes. He\u2019d say, `Sweetheart, you can take THAT one to school. But I wouldn\u2019t take THIS one.\u2032 We had such a wonderful time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her early ambition was to be a writer, and she wrote her grammar school graduation play, giving herself the leading role.<\/p>\n<p>At Beverly Hills High School, her ambition turned to acting, and she appeared in several school plays. Her parents hoped she\u2019d go to college, but instead she took roles in a small theater company and played bit parts in radio dramas.<\/p>\n<p>Then in 1949, she was hired for a local daytime TV show starring Al Jarvis, the best-known disc jockey in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>It was then that she got a tip to start lying about her age.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are so age-conscious in this country,\u201d she said in a 2011 interview with The Associated Press. \u201cIt\u2019s silly, but that\u2019s the way we are. So I was told, \u2018Knock four years off right now. You\u2019ll be blessing yourself down the road.\u2019 \u201cI was born in 1922. So I thought, \u2018I must always remember that I was born in 1926.\u2019 But then I would have to do the math. Finally, I decided to heck with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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: \u201cBetty White Hailed as TV\u2019s Busiest Gal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did that show 5\u00bd hours a day, six days a week, for 4\u00bd years,\u201d she recalled in 1975. Jarvis was replaced by actor Eddie Albert, and when he went to Europe for the film \u201cRoman Holiday,\u201d she headed the show.<\/p>\n<p>A sketch she had done with Jarvis turned into a syndicated series, \u201cLife With Elizabeth,\u201d which won White her first Emmy. For a time, she did interviews on \u201cThe Betty White Show\u201d in the daytime, filmed the series at night and often turned up on a late-night talk show. She also appeared on commercials and narrated New Year\u2019s Pasadena Rose Parade.<\/p>\n<p>With the glib tongue and quick responses nurtured in the Jarvis years, she was a welcome guest on \u201cI\u2019ve Got a Secret,\u201d \u201cTo Tell the Truth,\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s My Line\u201d and other game shows \u2014 all the way up to the 2008 \u201cMillion Dollar Password,\u201d which revived the game once hosted by Ludden, whom she had met as a contestant on the original \u201cPassword.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was in 1961, and the next year, while touring in summer theater during television\u2019s off-season, she starred with Ludden \u2014 by then a widower with three children \u2014 in the comedy \u201cCritic\u2019s Choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>White, who had claimed to be \u201cmilitantly single\u201d since a marriage in the late 1940s, weakened in her resolve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had always said on \u2018The Tonight Show\u2019 and everywhere else that I would never get married again,\u201d she told a reporter in 1963. \u201cBut Allen outnumbered me. He started in and even the children got in the act. And I surrendered \u2014 willingly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The marriage lasted from 1963 until his death from cancer in 1981.<\/p>\n<p>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, \u201cThe Pet Set,\u201d to which celebrities brought their dogs and cats. She wrote a 1983 book titled \u201cBetty White\u2019s Pet Love: How Pets Take Care of Us,\u201d and, in 2011, published \u201cBetty &amp; Friends: My Life at the Zoo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her devotion to pets was such that she declined a plum role in the hit 1997 movie \u201cAs Good As It Gets.\u201d She objected to a scene in which Jack Nicholson drops a small dog down a laundry chute.<\/p>\n<p>In her 2011 book \u201cIf You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won\u2019t),\u201d White explained the origins of her love for dogs. During the Depression, her dad made radios to sell to make extra money. But since no one 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\u2019s happy childhood even happier.<\/p>\n<p>Are there any critters she doesn\u2019t like?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d White told the AP in 2011. \u201cAnything with a leg on each corner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then what about snakes?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOhhh, I LOVE snakes!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And when asked how she had managed to be universally beloved by humans throughout her life, not just by animals, she summed up with a dimpled smile, \u201cI just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It\u2019s that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Betty White was America\u2019s naughty sweetheart. With a wholesome smile and a dirty joke she charmed millions of viewers decade after decade, rising from $50-a-week to ageless superstar who advised &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1176261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}