Betty White, beloved and trailblazing actress, dies at 99

There were '50s sitcoms, a 1954 speech amusement and adjacent a relation successful the 1962 movie "Advise and Consent." She'd popular up connected crippled shows occasionally, peculiarly "Password," hosted by her 3rd husband, Allen Ludden.

"It was a small retired of character, a small unfeminine, to beryllium ... you shouldn't beryllium funny," White recalled successful a 2017 interview with CNN, reminiscing astir her aboriginal days successful Hollywood. Noting that women astatine the clip were expected to simply "come successful and beryllium pretty," White countered: "No, it's truthful overmuch much amusive to get that laugh."

But starting with her show arsenic acerbic room diva Sue Ann Nivens connected the 1970s sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" -- opening erstwhile she was 51 -- White developed a knack for portraying the seemingly pure-hearted elder, afloat of Midwestern sincerity, who had a randy interior life. In doing so, she created a caller procreation of fans, a basal that lone grew larger arsenic she entered her 90s.

She was the sexually experienced, if different naïve, Rose Nylund connected "The Golden Girls."

White besides played a flinty and sometimes convulsive caput connected "Boston Legal." She had a impermanent spot connected "The Simpsons," hosted "Saturday Night Live" -- the oldest idiosyncratic ever to bash truthful -- and adjacent appeared successful a self-mocking advertisement for Snickers candy bars.

Through it all, she took her occurrence -- if not her enactment -- lightly.

 "I'm having the clip of my life, and the information that I'm inactive moving -- however fortunate tin you get?" she told the Huffington Post successful 2012.

 Betty White was meant to beryllium connected television.

When she was conscionable 17, successful 1939, she was connected an experimental TV broadcast. The exertion was inactive successful its infancy, having made its nationalist debut astatine the 1939 New York World's Fair.

 "I danced connected an experimental TV show, the archetypal connected the West Coast, successful downtown Los Angeles," she told Guinness World Records. "I wore my precocious schoolhouse graduation dress, and our Beverly Hills High pupil assemblage president, Harry Bennett, and I danced the 'Merry Widow Waltz.' "

White was a autochthonal of the Midwest, calved successful Oak Park, Illinois, connected January 17, 1922. (Her sanction was officially Betty, not Elizabeth.) Her parent was a homemaker, and her begetter was an enforcement for an electrical company.

When she was 2, her household moved to the Los Angeles area, wherever her begetter started manufacturing radios. During the Depression, concern got truthful choky at, astatine 1 point, helium traded them for dogs, hoping that would crook into a business. White remembered her household having astir 20 dogs astatine 1 point. She became a lifelong carnal lover.

 White attended Beverly Hills High School and, astatine 1 point, wrote a play successful which she formed herself arsenic the lead. "I conjecture that's erstwhile the bug bit," she told the Archive of American Television.

 White became a exemplary aft the TV appearance, though her vocation was interrupted by World War II, successful which she served successful the American Women's Voluntary Services.

 After the war, she worked successful theatre and yet started picking up vigor roles connected shows specified arsenic "The Great Gildersleeve" and "Blondie." In 1949, a Los Angeles vigor host, Al Jarvis, asked her to beryllium his "girl Friday" for a 5 1/2-hour unrecorded TV amusement that was intended to beryllium his vigor amusement connected tv but rapidly turned into a escaped variety-talk show, "Hollywood connected Television."

"It was similar going to tv college," she recalled. After a small much than 2 years, White became the sole host.

She segued into different programs: a syndicated show, "Life with Elizabeth"; an NBC sitcom, "Date with the Angels"; the archetypal of 4 programs named "The Betty White Show"; hosting parades -- "it got truthful that, if a awesome would spell reddish and six cars would enactment up, I'd denote them," she said; and a assortment of commercials and appearances. White adjacent had her ain accumulation company, a rarity for a pistillate astatine the time.

She besides did crippled shows, which yet led to gathering Ludden, her 3rd husband.

 Ludden was the big of "Password," and White was a panelist successful the show's 3rd week successful 1961. Later, the 2 worked unneurotic successful summertime banal and got to beryllium bully friends. Ludden, a widower, became an ardent pursuer and really bought White -- a two-time divorcee reluctant to wed again -- a wedding ring, courting her successful Los Angeles done transcontinental trips from his location successful New York.

She yet accepted a twelvemonth aboriginal erstwhile helium bought her earrings and a stuffed bunny for Easter, the second an entreaty to her emotion of animals.

 "I came to the constituent of regretting that twelvemonth that I wasted saying 'no.' I would person fixed thing to person it back," she said of her emotion matter with Ludden.

They were joined for 18 years until Ludden's decease of crab successful 1981. White ne'er remarried.

 For overmuch of the '60s and into the '70s, White worked steadily but quietly, with predominant speech amusement and crippled amusement appearances and the occasional impermanent slot. (At 1 point, she was asked to go portion of the "Today Show" team.) In the aboriginal '70s, she hosted the syndicated "The Pet Set," which featured celebrities and their animals.

 White and Ludden had galore friends, including Mary Tyler Moore and her shaper husband, Grant Tinker. At the urging of "MTM" casting manager Ethel Winant, White was formed arsenic Sue Ann Nivens, the "Happy Homemaker," sweetness and airy portion doing her cooking amusement but a man-hungry harridan off-camera.

Originally meant to beryllium a one-off -- Nivens was having an matter with the hubby of different quality -- by the clip the occurrence ended, the chemistry was truthful beardown that White became a regular.

She won 2 Emmys for the role.

White loved moving with the formed but observed that "the magic of the amusement was the writing. ... It was a magnificent combination."

White deed paydirt again a decennary aboriginal erstwhile she was formed arsenic Rose connected "The Golden Girls," the 1985-92 amusement astir 4 elder women sharing a Miami house.

The publication was "dynamite," White recalled. She was primitively slotted for the relation Blanche, the lascivious widow played by Rue McClanahan, but manager Jay Sandrich -- who'd worked with White connected "MTM" -- didn't privation her to repetition herself and suggested Rose.

The formed deed it disconnected beautifully, White recalled.

"It's similar 4 points connected a compass," she recalled. "That's wherefore we acceptable unneurotic truthful well."

The amusement won a slew of Emmys implicit its seven-season run, including 1 for White.

White was ne'er truly retired of the nationalist eye. After "The Golden Girls" went disconnected the air, she inactive worked, whether arsenic a spokeswoman for carnal payment -- she was a trustee of the Morris Animal Foundation for much than 40 years -- oregon arsenic a impermanent prima connected assorted TV shows.

But adjacent she wasn't prepared for the resurgence successful popularity that accompanied her quality successful the 2009 movie "The Proposal," successful which she played Ryan Reynolds' grandmother.

At the 2010 Screen Actors Guild Awards, she received a Life Achievement honor, cheekily introduced by "Proposal" co-star Sandra Bullock arsenic "a earnestly annoying person." 

After receiving a agelong ovation, she gave arsenic bully arsenic she got.

"Isn't it heartening to spot however acold a miss arsenic plain arsenic she is tin go?" she said of Bullock.

Later, she added, "I americium still, to this day, starstruck. I look retired astatine this audience, and I spot truthful galore celebrated faces. But what truly boggles my caput is, I really cognize galore of you, and I've worked with rather a few. Maybe," she added, "had a couple. And you cognize who you are."

And past she got serious.

 "This is the highest constituent of my nonrecreational life," she said. "Thank you from the bottommost of my heart."

Years later, she inactive wondered wherefore she'd abruptly started attracting attraction again.

 "I don't cognize wherever the 'comeback' communicative came (from)," she told Oprah Winfrey successful 2015. "I've been moving steadily for the past 70 years!"

 But it ne'er stopped for Betty White. There was the Snickers commercial. The "SNL" appearance. Another series, "Hot successful Cleveland," and appearances connected "Community," "Save Me" (as God) and adjacent "WWF Raw." She had a Twitter relationship with much than a cardinal followers.

She ne'er took immoderate of it for granted, remaining the aforesaid down-to-earth, somewhat impish, engaging pistillate the nationalist archetypal saw galore decades before.

"I americium the luckiest aged wide connected 2 feet," she told CNN successful 2017. "I'm inactive capable to get a job, astatine this age. I volition spell to my sedate saying 'Can I travel successful and work for that tomorrow?'"