Yesterday [Thursday, January 17, 2019] marked the 97th birthday of Emmy-winning actress Betty White. She was born January 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois, and has been a professional actress for—get this!—80 years. White has been married three times—twice while she was in her 20s—with her longest-lasting marriage to game show host Allen Ludden, from 1963 to his death in 1981. She has no children.
From best I can recall, it was in 2010 that marked this conscientious awareness and appreciation for Betty White which regard and respect for the fact that she has endured. She was 88 that year. A Facebook campaign to get her to host NBC’s Saturday Night Live was what finally moved White, years after having been offered, to accept. She did that on May 8, 2010. Four months later, she won the 2009–10 Emmy for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series. (Wikipedia says she has eight.)
What I think has done it for White, to still be part of the culture, is that she was born before and outlasted her Golden Girls cast mates. Three consecutive years, 2008 to 2010, marked the deaths of Estelle Getty, Beatrice Arthur, and Rue McClanahan. White certainly made it past 2011. And here she is, in 2019, and she is now 97.
What I also think did it for White is that people revisited her work and rediscovered what a really good actress she is. Her performances as man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens on CBS’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show (for which she won Emmys in 1975 and 1976) and pure-and-naïve Rose Nylund on NBC’s The Golden Girls (the first from the cast awarded an Emmy, in 1986) were versatile. And, like with the best quality you can find in an actor, she made it look easy.
Below are video clips of Betty White as Sue Ann and Rose.
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