Betty White, TV’s Golden Girl, dies at 99

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LOS ANGELES – Betty White, whose saucy, up-for-anything charm made her a tv mainstay for much than 60 years, whether arsenic a man-crazy TV hostess connected “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” oregon the loopy housemate connected “The Golden Girls,” has died. She was 99.

White's decease was confirmed by her longtime cause Jeff Witjas successful a telephone telephone Friday with publicist Pam Golum. White would person turned 100 connected Jan. 17, 2022.

She launched her TV vocation successful daytime speech shows erstwhile the mean was inactive successful its infancy and endured good into the property of cablegram and streaming. Her operation of sweetness and edginess gave beingness to a roster of quirky characters successful shows from the sitcom “Life With Elizabeth” successful the aboriginal 1950s to oddball Rose Nylund successful “The Golden Girls” successful the ’80s to “Boston Legal,” which ran from 2004 to 2008.

But it was successful 2010 that White’s stardom erupted arsenic ne'er before.

In a Snickers commercialized that premiered during that year’s Super Bowl telecast, she impersonated an energy-sapped dude getting tackled during a backlot shot game.

“Mike, you’re playing similar Betty White retired there,” jeered 1 of his chums. White, level connected the crushed and covered successful mud, fired back, “That’s not what your woman said!”

The instantly-viral video helped spark a Facebook run called “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!,” whose half-million fans led to her co-hosting “Saturday Night Live” successful a much-watched, much-hailed variation that Mother’s Day weekend. The quality won her a seventh Emmy award.

A period later, cable’s TV Land premiered “Hot In Cleveland,” the network’s archetypal first scripted series, which starred Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick arsenic 3 past-their-prime show-biz veterans who determination to Cleveland to flight the younker obsession of Hollywood. They determination into a location being looked aft by an aged Polish widow — a character, played by White, who was meant to look lone successful the aviator episode.

But White stole the show, and the salty Elka Ostrovsky became a cardinal portion of the series, an contiguous 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 connected to me, and I anticipation they ne'er do.”

By then, White had not lone go the hippest prima around, but besides a relation exemplary for however to turn aged joyously.

“Don’t effort to beryllium young,” she told The AP. “Just unfastened your mind. Stay funny successful stuff. There are truthful galore things I won’t unrecorded agelong capable to find retired about, but I’m inactive funny astir them.”

Such was her popularity that adjacent White’s day became a nationalist event: In January 2012, NBC aired “Betty White’s 90th Birthday Party” arsenic a star-studded prime-time special. She would aboriginal look successful specified bid arsenic “Bones” and Fireside Chat With Esther” and successful 2019 gave dependable to 1 of the toys, “Bitey White,” successful “Toy Story 4.”

White remained youthful successful portion done her accomplishment astatine playing bawdy oregon naughty portion radiating niceness. The fearfulness spoof “Lake Placid” and the drama “The Proposal” were marked by her characters’ amazingly salty language. And her quality Catherine Piper killed a antheral with a skillet connected “Boston Legal.”

But she astir wasn’t formed arsenic “Happy Homemaker” Sue Ann Nivens successful “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” successful 1973. She and her husband, Allen Ludden, were adjacent friends of Moore and Moore’s then-husband, shaper Grant Tinker. It was feared that if White failed connected the show, which already was a immense hit, it would beryllium embarrassing for each four. But CBS casting caput Ethel Winant declared White the logical choice. Originally planned arsenic a one-shot appearance, the relation of Sue Ann (which humorously foreshadowed Martha Stewart) lasted until Moore ended the bid successful 1977.

“While she’s icky-sweet connected her cooking show, Sue is truly a piranha type,” White erstwhile said. The relation brought her 2 Emmys arsenic supporting histrion successful a drama series.

In 1985, White starred connected NBC with Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty successful “The Golden Girls.” Its formed of mature actresses, playing azygous women successful Miami retirement, presented a gamble successful a youth-conscious industry. But it proved a coagulated deed and lasted until 1992.

White played Rose, a gentle, dim widow who managed to misinterpret astir situations. She drove her roommates brainsick with off-the-wall tales of puerility successful fictional St. Olaf, Minnesota, an off-kilter mentation of Lake Wobegon.

The relation won her different Emmy, and she reprised it successful a short-lived spinoff, “The Golden Palace.”

After her co-star Arthur died successful 2009, White told Entertainment Tonight: “She showed maine however to beryllium precise brave successful playing comedy. I’ll miss that courage.”

White’s different TV bid included “Mama’s Family,” arsenic Vicki Lawrence’s irascible mother; “Just Men,” a crippled amusement successful which women tried to foretell answers to questions directed to antheral celebrities; and “Ladies Man,” arsenic the catty parent of Alfred Molina.

“Just Men” brought her a daytime Emmy, portion she won a 4th premier clip Emmy successful 1996 for a impermanent changeable connected “The John Larroquette Show.”

She besides appeared successful galore miniseries and TV movies and made her movie debut arsenic a pistillate U.S. legislator successful Otto Preminger’s 1962 Capitol Hill play “Advise and Consent.”

White began her tv vocation arsenic $50-a-week sidekick to a section Los Angeles TV property successful 1949. She was hired for a section daytime amusement starring Al Jarvis, the best-known disc jockey successful Los Angeles.

It was past she got a extremity to commencement lying astir her age.

“We are truthful age-conscious successful this country,” she said successful a 2011 interrogation with The Associated Press. “It’s silly, but that’s the mode we are. So I was told, ‘Knock 4 years disconnected close now. You’ll beryllium blessing yourself down the road.’

“I was calved successful 1922. So I thought, ‘I indispensable ever retrieve that I was calved successful 1926.’ But past I would person to bash the math. Finally, I decided to heck with it.”

White proved to beryllium a earthy for the caller medium. She was bright, beauteous and likable, with a dimpled, eye-crinkling smile. A 1951 Los Angeles Times header said: “Betty White Hailed arsenic TV’s Busiest Gal.”

“I did that amusement 5½ hours a day, six days a week, for 4½ years,” she recalled successful 1975. Jarvis was replaced by histrion Eddie Albert, and erstwhile helium went to Europe for the movie “Roman Holiday,” she headed the show.

A sketch she had done with Jarvis turned into a syndicated series, “Life With Elizabeth,” which won her archetypal Emmy. For a clip she did interviews connected “The Betty White Show” successful the daytime, filmed the bid astatine nighttime and often turned up connected a late-night speech show. She besides appeared connected commercials and each New Year’s narrated the Pasadena Rose Parade.

With the glib lingua and speedy responses nurtured successful the Jarvis years, she was a invited impermanent connected “I’ve Got a Secret,” “To Tell the Truth,” “What’s My Line” and different crippled shows — each the mode up to the 2008 “Million Dollar Password,” which revived the crippled erstwhile hosted by Ludden, whom she had met erstwhile a contestant connected his archetypal “Password.”

That was successful 1961, and the adjacent year, portion touring successful summertime theatre during television’s disconnected season, she starred with Ludden — by past a widower with 3 children — successful the drama “Critic’s Choice.”

White, who had claimed to beryllium “militantly single” since a 1947-1949 marriage, weakened successful her resolve.

“I had ever said connected `The Tonight Show’ and everyplace other that I would ne'er get joined again,” she told a newsman successful 1963. “But Allen outnumbered me. He started successful and adjacent the children got successful the act. And I surrendered — willingly.”

The matrimony lasted from 1963 until his decease from crab successful 1981.

Off-screen, White tirelessly raised wealth for carnal causes specified arsenic 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 publication titled “Betty White’s Pet Love: How Pets Take Care of Us,” and, successful 2011, published “Betty & Friends: My Life astatine the Zoo.”

Her devotion to pets was specified that she declined a plum relation successful the deed 1997 movie “As Good As It Gets.” She objected to a country successful which Jack Nicholson drops a tiny canine down a laundry chute.

In her 2011 publication “If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t),” White explained the origins of her emotion for dogs. During the Depression, her dada made radios to merchantability to marque other money. But since fewer radical had wealth to bargain the radios, helium willingly traded them for dogs, which, housed successful kennels successful the backyard, astatine times numbered arsenic galore arsenic 15 and made White’s blessed puerility adjacent happier.

Are determination immoderate critters she doesn’t like?

“No,” White told the AP. “Anything with a limb connected each corner.”

Then what astir snakes?

“Ohhh, I LOVE snakes!”

She was calved Betty Marion White successful Oak Park, Illinois, and the household moved to Los Angeles erstwhile she was a toddler.

“I’m an lone child, and I had a parent and dada who ne'er drew a consecutive line: They conscionable thought funny,” she told The Associated Press successful 2015. “We’d beryllium astir the meal array and past we’d commencement kicking it around. My dada was a salesman and helium would travel location with jokes. He’d say, `Sweetheart, you tin instrumentality THAT 1 to school. But I wouldn’t instrumentality THIS one.′ We had specified a fantastic time.”

Her aboriginal ambition was to beryllium a writer, and she wrote her grammar schoolhouse graduation play, giving herself the starring role.

At Beverly Hills High School, her ambition turned to acting, and she appeared successful respective schoolhouse plays. Her parents hoped she’d spell to college, but alternatively she took roles successful a tiny theatre and played spot parts successful vigor dramas.

Explaining successful 2011 however she kept up her frantic gait adjacent arsenic an octogenarian, she explained that she lone needed 4 hours of slumber each night.

And erstwhile asked however she had managed to beryllium universally beloved during her decades-spanning career, she summed up with a dimpled smile: “I conscionable marque it my concern to get on with radical truthful I tin person fun. It’s that simple.”

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Associated Press writers Lynn Elber and Bob Thomas contributed.

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