I had planned to write and publish the topic for Monday, January 17, 2022 as a “Happy Birthday” for actress Betty White. That is the date she would have turned 100.
She came close.
Very close.
The television icon—and seven-time Emmy winner—died in her sleep at age 99 last Friday, December 31, 2021.
This loss does hurt because White was a reminder to me why, even in this terrible period in U.S. history, and how bad politics has affected so much of showbiz to the point of overall lackluster art, I do like the performing arts and appreciate talented actors. White was a very natural, bright light. With her roles as two very different situation-comedy characters—Sue Ann Nivens on CBS’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose Nylund on NBC’s The Golden Girls—White played a sexually inappropriate cooking-show host followed a sweet but often dumb widow and counselor while never allowing for either of them to end up as jokes. Part of it was the creation and writing of those characters, yes, but a bigger part what how White portrayed Sue Ann and Rose. There was nothing cheap or cartoonish. White played them as individuals who have hearts. She also did this with class.
It will take some time to get used to this fact—that Betty White is no longer alive—but this is part of life.
I recall, after she hosted in 2010 NBC’s Saturday Night Live—and Facebook members campaigned for her to do that (and she did win an Emmy doing so)—White appeared via satellite on Oprah Winfrey’s former daytime talk show (which ended in 2011).
At that time, White was 88. Winfrey asked White if she does give thought to end of life. By this point, White’s Golden Girls cast mates—Estelle Getty (2008), Beatrice Arthur (2009), and Rue McClanahan (2010)—had, over the course of three consecutive years, died. White was born before each of them. She also survived her Mary Tyler Moore regular cast mates. (Four of them, before White, died in 2021. Cloris Leachman was in January; Gavin MacLeod in May; and Edward Asner in August.) White was also born before of each of them. (Ted Knight died in 1986; the star of the show Mary Tyler Moore in 2017; and both Georgia Engel and Valerie Harper in 2019.) And, incredibly so, White really hung in.
Betty White told Oprah Winfrey that she reached that point of acceptance. That she was certainly aware of how far she had come. A perception, yes, of her remaining time being very precious. White resigned herself to being accepting that, when her time is up, she is ready. That she did a lot. She achieved much. And her life was full. Well, that was 2010. Turns out White had 11 more years. That is really impressive. Remarkable.
Thank you, Betty White!
