When Betty White died on New Year’s Eve, she was just a few weeks away from her 100th birthday. People magazine even had an upcoming issue celebrating her turning 100, perhaps as good a sign as any of the country’s feeling that Betty White simply had always been here and would always be here. White first stormed Hollywood in the 1930s, after all, and remained a household name to this day.
White was the last of the four iconic Golden Girls to pass and spent her later years endearing herself to the public, often with self-deprecating guest appearances and making human and animal lives better through her quiet philanthropy.
Her career started during the Great Depression when her family departed her native Illinois to make a life in Los Angeles. White quickly stood out, landing acting and modeling roles, but halted her career for a stint in the American Women’s Voluntary Services during World War II.
When she returned, White found Hollywood changed — and less interested in her talents — so she blazed her own trail, first with a radio show and guest appearances on variety television programs such as What’s My Line? that played well with White’s characteristically quick comedic timing and sharp wit. She did so well on Password that she caught the eye of the show’s host, Allen Ludden, whom she was married to from 1961 until his death in the late 1980s.
Ludden and White were a power couple, and, with Ludden, White became a noted TV producer, one of the first female producers in TV history. She was nominated for a supporting role Emmy in 1951, the first year the Emmys honored women in television.
She would eventually win that award — twice — as the standout, sarcastic “happy homemaker” Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and again as Rose Nylund, the gentle and somewhat less sharp (but no less beloved) Golden Girl.
Although television’s sitcom culture changed dramatically toward the end of the last century, White had remained a staple of prime-time programming, starring in Hot in Cleveland for six seasons, in a short-lived reality prank show, and as a perennial favorite invitee for awards shows, cameo appearances, and voice-overs.
In a statement, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences President Bob Mauro called White, simply, “one of the most beloved female performers in the history of television.”
But alongside nearly every tribute calling White an entertainment pioneer were statements calling White, in the words of Emmy Vice President David Michaels, one of the “nicest women in showbusiness.” President Joe Biden called White “a lovely lady.”
In her later years, the trailblazing actress became a powerhouse advocate for animal welfare, donating millions to zoos and animal shelters, including millions (and a private plane) to help evacuate penguins, sea otters, and other wildlife from the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans ahead of Hurricane Katrina to the Monterey Bay Aquarium near White’s home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The feat remained under wraps until after White died, when the Audubon Nature Institute acknowledged her contributions in a glowing statement.
Emily Zanotti is a writer and editor living in Nashville, Tennessee.
