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Betty
White,
TV’s
Golden
Girl,
dies at
99
By LYNN
ELBER
and
FRAZIER
MOORE
apnews.com
LOS
ANGELES
- Betty
White,
whose
saucy,
up-for-anything
charm
made her
a
television
mainstay
for more
than 60
years,
whether
as a
man-crazy
TV
hostess
on “The
Mary
Tyler
Moore
Show” or
the
loopy
housemate
on “The
Golden
Girls,”
has
died.
She was
99.
White’s
longtime
agent
and
friend
Jeff
Witjas
confirmed
her
death
Friday.
She had
no
diagnosed
illness,
and it
was
unclear
if she
died
Thursday
night or
Friday,
he said.
She
would
have
turned
100 on
Jan. 17.
Her
death
brought
tributes
from
celebrities
and
politicians
alike.
“We
loved
Betty
White,”
first
lady
Jill
Biden
said as
she left
a
Delaware
restaurant
with
President
Joe
Biden,
who
added:
“Ninety-nine
years
old. As
my
mother
would
say, God
love
her.”
“She was
great at
defying
expectation,”
Ryan
Reynolds,
who
starred
alongside
her in
the
comedy
“The
Proposal,”
tweeted.
“She
managed
to grow
very old
and
somehow,
not old
enough.
We’ll
miss
you,
Betty.”
White
launched
her TV
career
in
daytime
talk
shows
when the
medium
was
still in
its
infancy
and
endured
well
into the
age of
cable
and
streaming.
Her
combination
of
sweetness
and
edginess
gave
life to
a roster
of
quirky
characters
in shows
from the
sitcom
“Life
With
Elizabeth”
in the
early
1950s to
oddball
Rose
Nylund
in “The
Golden
Girls”
in the
’80s to
“Boston
Legal,”
which
ran from
2004 to
2008.
But it
was in
2010
that
White’s
stardom
erupted
as never
before.
In a
Snickers
commercial
that
premiered
during
that
year’s
Super
Bowl
telecast,
she
impersonated
an
energy-sapped
dude
getting
tackled
during a
backlot
football
game.
“Mike,
you’re
playing
like
Betty
White
out
there,”
jeered
one of
his
chums.
White,
flat on
the
ground
and
covered
in mud,
fired
back,
“That’s
not what
your
girlfriend
said!”
The
instantly-viral
video
helped
spark a
successful
Facebook
campaign
to have
her host
“Saturday
Night
Live.”
The
much-watched
episode
won her
a
seventh
Emmy.
A month
later,
cable’s
TV Land
premiered
“Hot In
Cleveland,”
which
starred
Valerie
Bertinelli,
Jane
Leeves
and
Wendie
Malick
as three
past-their-prime
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 —
a
character,
played
by
White,
who was
meant to
appear
only in
the
pilot
episode.
But
White
stole
the
show,
and
became a
key part
of the
series,
an
immediate
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
on to
me, and
I hope
they
never
do.”
By then,
White
had not
only
become
the
hippest
star
around,
but also
a role
model
for how
to grow
old
joyously.
“Don’t
try to
be
young,”
she told
the AP.
“Just
open
your
mind.
Stay
interested
in
stuff.
There
are so
many
things I
won’t
live
long
enough
to find
out
about,
but I’m
still
curious
about
them.”
White
remained
youthful
in part
through
her
skill at
playing
bawdy or
naughty
while
radiating
niceness.
The
horror
spoof
“Lake
Placid”
and “The
Proposal”
were
marked
by her
characters’
surprisingly
salty
language.
And her
character
Catherine
Piper
killed a
man with
a
skillet
on
“Boston
Legal.”
Her role
as
“Happy
Homemaker”
Sue Anne
Nivens
in “The
Mary
Tyler
Moore
Show,”
which
was
already
a huge
hit, was
planned
as a
one-off
appearance
in 1973,
but it
would
last
until
the show
ended in
1977.
“While
she’s
icky-sweet
on her
cooking
show,
Sue is
really a
piranha
type,”
White
once
said.
The role
brought
her two
Emmys as
supporting
actress
in a
comedy
series.
In 1985,
White
starred
on NBC
with Bea
Arthur,
Rue
McClanahan
and
Estelle
Getty in
“The
Golden
Girls.”
Its cast
of
mature
actors,
playing
single
women in
Miami
retirement,
presented
a gamble
in a
youth-conscious
industry.
But it
proved a
solid
hit and
lasted
until
1992.
White
played
Rose, a
gentle,
dim
widow
who
drove
her
roommates
crazy
with
off-the-wall
tales of
childhood
in
fictional
St.
Olaf,
Minnesota.
The role
won her
yet
another
Emmy,
and she
reprised
it in a
short-lived
spinoff,
“The
Golden
Palace.”
White
began
her
television
career
as
$50-a-week
sidekick
to local
Los
Angeles
TV
personality
Al
Jarvis
in 1949.
White
proved
to be a
natural
for the
new
medium.
“I did
that
show 5½
hours a
day, six
days a
week,
for 4½
years,”
she
recalled
in 1975.
A sketch
she had
done
with
Jarvis
turned
into a
syndicated
series,
“Life
With
Elizabeth,”
which
won her
first
Emmy.
Off-screen,
White
tirelessly
raised
money
for
animal
causes,
hosting
a
syndicated
TV show
and
writing
three
books on
her
animal
love,
which
she said
stemmed
from her
family
taking
care of
as many
as 15
dogs at
a time
during
the
Depression.
Are
there
any
critters
she
doesn’t
like?
“No,”
White
told the
AP.
“Anything
with a
leg on
each
corner.”
Then
what
about
snakes?
“Ohhh,
I LOVE
snakes!”
She was
born
Betty
Marion
White in
Oak
Park,
Illinois,
and the
family
moved to
Los
Angeles
when she
was a
toddler.
“I’m an
only
child,
and I
had a
mother
and dad
who
never
drew a
straight
line:
They
just
thought
funny,”
she told
The
Associated
Press in
2015.
“We’d
sit
around
the
breakfast
table
and then
we’d
start
kicking
it
around.”
Her
early
ambition
was to
be a
writer,
and she
wrote
her
grammar
school
graduation
play,
giving
herself
the
leading
role.
At
Beverly
Hills
High
School,
her
ambition
turned
to
acting,
and she
appeared
in
several
school
plays.
Her
parents
hoped
she’d go
to
college,
but
instead
she took
roles in
a small
theater
and
played
bit
parts in
radio
dramas.
After
two very
brief
marriages
in the
1940s,
White
wed her
third
and
final
husband,
actor
and game
show
host
Allen
Ludden,
in 1963.
They
remained
married
until
his
death in
1981.
When
asked in
2011 how
she had
managed
to be
universally
beloved
during
her
decades-spanning
career,
she
summed
up with
a
dimpled
smile:
“I just
make it
my
business
to get
along
with
people
so I can
have
fun.
It’s
that
simple.”
___
Associated
Press
writers
Lindsey
Bahr,
Lynn
Berry
and the
late Bob
Thomas
contributed.
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