Betty White, the vivacious comic actress who had the longest television career in the history of the medium, has died. TMZ first reported her death, which law enforcement authorities confirmed. She was 99.
White is best known for her roles in two of TV’s best sitcom ensembles: The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls. But she also appeared in 30 films, starred in seven decades’ worth of sitcoms, hosted a talk show, was a favorite on the game show circuit, and was one of the first female television producers.
Betty Marion White (she didn’t change her name through three marriages, and Betty wasn’t short for anything—her parents didn’t want to use Elizabeth and risk her being called Beth or Liza) was born in 1922 in Oak Park, Illinois. The family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, and White began writing and performing in high school. Deciding she wanted to be an actress, White auditioned for several movie studios, who decided she wasn’t photogenic. Instead, she played bit parts in radio dramas, sang, modeled, and took whatever work she could get.
Three months after graduating high school in 1939, she landed a gig with an experimental new medium: television. (NBC had launched earlier that year, only in New York and LA) She and a classmate sang a few songs and danced a waltz. The broadcast is lost to history, and even White can’t remember the name of the program. But it was the start of a career that spanned the entire history of television thus far.
However, that career would have to wait. White put her career on hold to volunteer during WWII, driving a truck by day to deliver army supplies and performing by night at dances intended to give soldiers a rousing send-off. She married Army pilot Dick Barker in 1945, but four months after leaving Hollywood to live on his chicken farm, she divorced him and returned to her career. Two years later, she married an agent, Lane Allen, but divorced him as well in 1949 when he pushed her to give up her career.
After a few years of radio work, White co-hosted a live, six-day-a-week TV variety show called Hollywood On Television, and when her co-host departed, she hosted solo. She was able to parlay her success into her first starring sitcom role, Life With Elizabeth, which she co-created, becoming one of television’s first female producers as a result. The show was a hit and netted her a nomination in the first-ever Emmy Best Actress category (her first of 21 nominations over 63 years, both records).
From then on, White was a television staple, and not just in comedy. She hosted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for ten years and the Tournament of Roses Parade for twenty. She did sketches alongside Johnny Carson and Carol Burnett. She was nicknamed “First Lady of Game Shows” for frequent appearances on shows like What’s My Line?, To Tell the Truth, Match Game, and several incarnations of Password. It was on the latter show that she met her third husband, Allen Ludden, the show’s host. This time, marriage worked out for White—the two stayed together until his death of cancer in 1981.
In 1973, Mary Tyler Moore was casting around for an actress to play a guest role on her eponymous sitcom. Sue Ann Nivens’ central joke was that WJM’s “Happy Homemaker” was sweet as pie on camera and a hard-driving maneater off. Moore suggested they needed “somebody who can play sickeningly sweet, like Betty White.” Rather than settle for an imitation, Moore simply cast White, who gave the already-popular series a shot in the arm and went from guest to series regular.
After Moore wrapped in 1977, White headlined her own sitcom, The Betty White Show, which lasted one season. She then hosted her own game show, Just Men!, for which she became the first woman to win a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Game Show Host. And in 1985, she got another defining role.
The producers of The Golden Girls, about four friends who move in together after finding themselves widowed or divorced, offered White the role of sexpot Blanche, figuring her experience on Mary Tyler Moore made her a natural. They likewise cast Rue McClanahan as scatterbrained Rose based on her similar role on Maude. But neither actress was thrilled about being typecast, and the pilot’s director, Jay Sandrich, suggested they swap roles. Two iconic characters were born, and White was nominated for Outstanding Actress In A Comedy Series every year the show was on the air.
After a string of guest appearances through the ‘90s, White had no intention of slowing down even after turning 80. She took recurring roles on both Boston Legal and The Bold And The Beautiful, and in 2010 became the oldest-ever host of Saturday Night Live at 88 thanks to a Facebook campaign. By way of thanks, she joked, “Now that I know what [Facebook] is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time.”
That same year, she was cast in the pilot of Hot In Cleveland and ended up staying on for the series entire 6-year run. While acting in Cleveland, she also produced Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, a hidden-camera show in which senior citizens played practical jokes.
During a busy career on screen, White found time to devote to animal rights, working with the Morris Animal Foundation, the African Wildlife Foundation, and serving on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Zoo since 1974. The American Veterinary Medical Association granted her its Humane Award in 1987 for her charitable work. (She turned down a role in the film As Good As It Gets to protest a scene where Jack Nicholson throws a dog down a garbage chute).
White leaves behind a legacy as television’s most enduring performer, who brought laughter to generations.
154 Comments
god damn it 2021
Fuck you 2021
Taking Betty White just shy of 100 on its last day? Yeah, that’s the kind of dick move I’d expect from 2021.
Mrs. F. loves this quote and says it to me when I deserve it. Anymore it’s just shortened to “If I had a dick.”We were here in the house together when the news broke on both our phones at same time with notifications from our local paper. We both yelled out about it at pert near the same time. RIP Betty. Tell Allen we said hi.
I came here to post this, one of my favorite Betty White quotes😎💗 RIP
Fuck you, Death. Not cool. Betty White was a saint. If anyone deserved to be a Centenarian, it was Queen Betty White, First of Her Name, The Goldenest Girl, Friend To All
At least one thing can be said about her just missing her 100th…She left us wanting more.
She had 24 leap years. The extra days should put her over the finish line.
RIP to an absolute legend..just change the name of the Emmy awards to the ‘Betty’ awards, you cowards.Slight correction, Mike: her family moved to LA when she was 2, in 1924, not during the Depression.
her agent and close friend Jeff Witjas tells PEOPLE in a statement on Friday. “I will miss her terribly and so will the animal world that she loved so much. I don’t think Betty ever feared passing because she always wanted to be with her most beloved husband Allen Ludden. She believed she would be with him again.” https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/betty-white-golden-girls-hot-192414868.htmlGo into that light and don’t look back. We’ll be just fine.
No, fuck you, 2021.
One last bit of salt in the wound, eh 2021?At least she and Allen are together again.
https://makeagif.com/i/yKZGvC
Let me fix that for you.
Chef’s kiss
I actually prefer this to waking up in 2022 to hear the news of her death. Bad way to start the year. Not that every day of her life wasn’t incredible! Baruch Dayan Emet.
Interesting that there are a handful of death pools that are happy (-ish) that she died when she did rather than messing up the 2022 pool. The timing of a death can real raise some controversy. It’s strange what people will bet on.
Unfortunately for me, I’m in a timezone where I did wake up on the first day of 2022 to find this out. It hasn’t exactly ruined today, but it’s been a down note for sure.
Which more or less described my day in Australia when I woke up in 2022.
Yep, me too (I live in Vietnam)
Cut down in her prime…
I understand she has been openly flirting with Ryan Reynolds for many years. Blake Lively is the prime suspect.
Pfft, White would have chewed Lively up and spat out her bones if she’d tried anything.
She finally messed with the wrong man’s potato chips.
It was very sudden.I mean right there at the end, when she actually died, was very sudden.
An American icon whose wit and love for animals are unmatched. I’ll miss you, Betty! Thanks for a lifetime of laughter. — Politicatty, Washington DC, United States, 50 minutes ago
As sad as this is, I’m glad she never seemed to enter a period of prolonged and extreme decline like so many people her age do. She lived long and died quickly, and that’s basically the dream.RIP to an absolute legend.
It’s quite the blessing, isn’t it? She was literally flirting with Ryan Reynolds just a day ago. Smart and funny as hell right until the very end.
This. She had a good run, and an easy exit. It’s how I’d like to go.
RIP
I don’t think there’s anything to add to this. May we all live and die as well as she did.
She would have been a better Aunt Clara in Bewitched then whoever they had.
She was literally doing press last week about her upcoming 100. This seemed very sudden but that’s not the worse way to go. Plus she had a good long run.
It’s very sad but she was quite unwell at the end. All the recent press was her reps speaking on her behalf or archive footage.
2021 is determined to suck right up until the very end.RIP, Betty. What a great lady you were were, and thank you for sharing your life with us and giving us so many great memories, along with your MTM co-stars Cloris Leachman, Gavin McLeod, and Ed Asner, who also left us this year.
Yeah, that’s crazy that 4 cast members from that show all died this year.
Rest in peace, Betty, Cloris and all we’ve lost this year. Now somebody find Mel Brooks and give him a steady supply of health potions!
While losing Brooks would be terrible for the rest of us, he shares something with White in that he’s got someone on the other side that he’d be so happy to reunite with.
Absolutely. Speaking of Brooks, I’m enjoying what I’ve read so far of his autobiography. I highly recommend reading it.
Two people, depending on whether you were referring to Anne Bancroft or Carl Reiner.
Honestly two peopleCarl Reiner and Anne Bancroft.
Thank you for this.
On the bright side:If she died tomorrow then everyone would be saying “2022 is going to be so terrible now!”
They went out together, all 90+ years of age. I like that.
I like the speculation that White voluntarily went a bit early so that it could be captured in the 2021 shitshow and we get to start fresh this year.
I know. What the hell did 2021 have against the Mary Tyler Moore Show?
Her SNL episode appears to have been made available without a Peacock/NBC login, in case anyone wants to revisit:https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/may-8-betty-white/4016825
I won’t be surprised if that gets a repeat on NBC this or next week.There are also a few deleted sketches on Youtube from that episode.
It’s being re-aired tonight – in all of its glory.
Thanks for sharing the news. Hope people can see it.
Betty White was an icon. She was amazing. She will be a legend. I woke up from a nap and the first headline I read online was RIP Betty White. I first thought it was a joke, but then I found a second one and I cried. I don’t cry at celebrity deaths often (Leonard Nimoy was the last one I cried for), but I will miss her.And she knew she was loved, so she is in peace. She will make the next life shine even more brilliantly as she joins her fellow Golden Girls and Lucille Ball.
I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that he almost died.
99 years old and universally loved. That’s pretty amazing.
Well, now I’m thinking of my own grandmother, who also died just weeks away from what would have been her 100th birthday (and who also loved Betty White, of course.)
Fuck this shit.
My Auschwitz-survivor grandfather-in-law will be 100 in April. If he should die before then, it won’t be a tragedy, and he’s lived a good life since he was liberated nearly 80 years ago, but it’ll still be sad, and a loss.
Im glad he’s still here.
Thank you, we are too!
Huh. My grandmom died at 95 a couple of months ago. The year just keeps on taking…
I’m very sorry for your loss. My precious grandma died last year (96), and I miss her dreadfully.
So sorry for your loss.
My mom died on the first day of 2021 and Betty White died on the last day. Fuck 2021.
Oof. I’m sorry.
My Grandma made it to 100, was still witty, well-dressed and coiffed, and lived by herself. We had a big party and she died a few months later.
I really think she wanted to make it to 100, and when she did, she was ready to go.
Same, lost mine in November, would have been 100 in March. A solid life though it sucks that we didn’t get to see her much for the last two years.
It’s astonishing to think what people of this generation saw come to fruition. My kids can’t imagine a world without Internet or cell phones, never mind television.
Yeah, no kidding!
When someone lives just shy of 100 years the “fuck this shit” sentiment is absurd.
I just woke up to 2022 with this news so it’s good to know well in advance that this year is going to suck too.
As I unfortunately had to say about Cloris Leachman at the beginning of the year: The Mary Tyler Moore Show is probably the greatest cast in TV history and she was a priceless part of that. Asner and MacLeod, too.
2021 was NOT a good year to be a Mary Tyler Moore Show fan.
Everyones gone now right?
All of the major cast members are now gone. A few recurring actors like John Amos are still with us.
All the major members were like four years apart. Mary was 2017, and god Ed Asner was just a few months ago.
The big outlier was Ted Knight in 1986.
and valerie harper in 2019
Also Georgia Engel in 2019.
I honestly remember being somewhat surprised at Asner’s appearance in Elf. He was like Brimley, just always seemed elderly.
They’re all gone now. : (
Whoa, White Betty (Bam-ba-lam)
Such a cool lady, she had a good long life without any of the decline most of us so often experience at the other side of 50/60. If there’s something after this, she’s already writing some new material, I’m sure.
I don’t fucking believe it. Or I don’t want to believe it.
Very sad, I was suspecting something may have been up when they started running stories for her 100th early, they may have been concerned she wouldn’t get to enjoy any of it so they chose to start early.
Nothing was up. She was 99, and she died in her sleep within days of an interview.
It has now been reported she had a stroke 6 days before her death, that’s why they pushed shit up.
Dammit. I really thought she’d be the first person to live forever.
It might be Keith Richards. That fucker will live forever since all the drugs combined probably preserved him
I’ve long said Richards surviving such an intense combination of pickling, smoking and chemical preservation should be the subject of priority medical research.
To echo a sentiment I saw on Twitter by passing just shy of her 100th birthday she did something that all entertainers want to do…She left us wanting more.
Thanks for the unnecessary kick in the dick on your way out the door 2021…
Dammit, 2021, must you take my heart and my soul?
Three weeks away from a very vibrant 100. What a life, and I suspect White would have cracked a smile with the obit of her adopted hometown newspaper, the L.A. Times.It’s generally well known that major newspapers have obits prewritten and ready to go for aging celebs and politicos. But what’s not common is for the celeb to outlast the obit writer’s employment by a remarkable 15 years, which is exactly what she seems to have done based on a glance at the employment history of one of the byline credits.Way to outlive your impending demise. Rest in peace.
Also, this is a great story about how she put the volunteer who cleans her late husband’s grave on the same level as Ryan Reynolds and Robert Redford.https://www.sheboyganpress.com/story/news/2022/01/01/milwaukee-filmmakers-release-betty-white-birthday-film-january/9064306002/
That’s lovely, thanks for sharing. This one is hitting hard even though as others have noted she had a great run and went out the right way.
I didn’t get a Community notification for this?
They canceled the Betty White Show because she wanted to showcase a black dancer and the network told her not under any circumstances. She did it anyway and told them to live with it.
It was audiences in the south and yeah, she told them as politely as possible to get fucked.
This doesn’t surprise me. Mississippi’s public TV network back in 1971 refused to air Sesame Street because of it’s racially mixed cast. They were afraid this would have a negative affect on the state’s youth.
2021 really did it like that. Absolute motherfucker.
She sacrificed herself so 2022 wouldn’t be as terrible…. At least that’s what I’m going with….
2021: “Oh, hang on…aaaaand, done. Happy new year fuckers.”
The great lanai in the sky
She was the best!
I wonder how long AVClub has had this obituary written. Anyway, I’m sorry for her close friends and family who will miss her, but I’m glad she’s getting her rest now. Thanks, and good rest, Mrs. White.
Wow, she was a trucker by day and a dancer by night? That’s pretty cool!
RIP.
She worked at 15 clubs a day
And yet Queen Elizabeth is still alive…
Allegedly.
She’s been seen, so I’m sure she’s still kicking.
Ah, sweet Betty White! Never will I forget the time you called Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, and Bredan Gleeson a bunch of fucking cocksuckers!I was glad to read that she divorced those old-fashioned bums who wanted her to give up her career. No doubt that took some guts back in those days, and she seems to have had guts and also moxie. Rest easy, ma’am!
Made quick work of it too, from the sounds of it.
I especially appreciate that unlike certain other comedy stars of her era I could name, she never once did any complaining about how people had become too “woke” for what comedy is supposed to be. And in fact The Golden Girls was amazingly progressive about LGBT issues.
Having a network TV character like Blanche who was so openly promiscuous was hardly an every day occurrence either. She was a less obnoxious version of Samantha, 20 years earlier.
Only a few more hours left before we can finally say bye bye to this rotten 2021. This news just stinks.
She was pressured to remove Black dancer Arthur Duncan from her show in the 1950s. She said live with it, and the show was soon cancelled. A great, brave woman who was far ahead of her time.
She turned around and gave him even -more- screen time after telling people to live with it, which is why I think it was cancelled, because she wasn’t going to let bigots tell her what to do. And GG was aggressively ahead of it’s time when it came to LBGT folks and no one was going to tell a top tier show what was ‘okay’, not if they wanted to keep those four powerhouse women happy.For me, she’s right up there with Fred Rogers in that she led a amazingly loving life that touched all ages and didn’t have much, if any dirt hiding under the bed. She refused to slow down even at the very end and left on her terms.
so…. no-one ever thought to put betty white and dolly parton in a movie together?hollywood, you’re not smart.
She was one of TV’s original badasses. Another one: Lawrence Welk.He was told the same thing about Duncan, and he put him on the show anyway. He also featured country singer Charley Pride in 1967. After ABC cancelled his show, Welk continued in first-run syndication for nearly 20 years.
My middle turned 10 today. (Most of the excitement was on Dec. 30, but she’s techinically a NYE baby)
Since about Thanksgiving, she’s been calling herself 10.
Betty White lived to 100. Fuck your calendar.
A legend. I found out she died because I recieved a wrong number text about it, and I didn’t believe it was true. Oh well. May we live lives a tenth as successful and be a hundredth as beloved as Betty White.
There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said here except, I think Rose was the Golden Girl my mum liked/identified with the most. Her stories about St Olaf always got a chuckle.
Her Herring Circus bit is both insanely funny and ad-libbed.
You can see they’re smiling and laughing both in character and out of.
Total pros.
Thank you for posting that – I’m in tears here.
Well, fuck. You. Too. 2021
2021 definitely saved the best for last.
Thank god her reign of terror is finally over.
Well done. Thank you for that laugh. I really needed that.
I was worried I’d get in trouble for it haha
I’m glad you got to write this obit, Mike. She really was something else. Hard to believe she’s really gone.
2021 wasn’t done with us yet.
I don’t have anything profound to say. I liked a lot of her work, including Hot in Cleveland and Boston Legal, which I watched too much of in law school. I’m sad she passed before turning 100, and hopeful it was peaceful and she finds peace.
Now that was a life well lived.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!It may be the greatest testament to her legacy, that the old entertainment adage of “Leave them wanting more” applies more to a 99-year-old than it has to almost any other person.
I did a doubletake when I checked her date of birth & realized my Dad was 2 weeks older than her.
Wow. Just the other day, at the movies, I saw a trailer for her 100th birthday celebration show and I thought “What if she doesn’t make it?”
“White auditioned for several movie studios, who decided she wasn’t photogenic.”Movie studios of the time were known for being run by idiots.
Those dimples!
“Not photogenic” tended to be a euphemism for “won’t suck dick for roles.”
“Movie studios of the time were known for being run by idiots.”And it still hasn’t changed. See: Harvey Weinstein.
Thank you for being a friend Betty.
This is how I want to go out. In 43 years in my own bed after falling asleep.More vodka and hot dogs for me.
Even if she didn’t have the life and career she had, 99 years is nothing to sniff at. RIP.
The world was a better and kinder place thanks to Betty White. She was an irreverent Grand Old Dame.
I had to explain to my teenager who Betty White was. We may have to break out some Golden Girls or MTM episodes soon.
To live in the public eye for a large majority of her 99yrs and essentially be loved by EVERYONE is a testament to how brilliant Betty White was, she left an indelible mark on generations of people, she’ll be genuinely missed.RIP Betty -a TRUE Entertainment Legend.
TMZ first reported her death, which law enforcement authorities confirmed.
What? Did she die shooting it out with the cops because they wanted their dogs back…?
This one really, really hurts.
99 years old, eh. Fine, I’ll say it. She was a quitter.
Starred for a line (read it again hearing her voice)
she woulda killed with.
Stop fucking around.