86 Facts About Betty White

Betty Marion White was an American actress and comedian.

Betty White produced and starred in the sitcom Life with Elizabeth, making her the first woman to produce a sitcom.

Betty White then became more widely known for her appearances on The Bold and the Beautiful, Boston Legal, and The Carol Burnett Show.

Betty White had a late career resurgence when she starred in the romantic comedy film The Proposal and hosted Saturday Night Live the following year, garnering her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

Betty White received various awards and nominations, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, and a Regional Emmy Award, as well as three American Comedy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award.

Betty White has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was a 1995 Television Hall of Fame inductee.

Betty Marion White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on January 17,1922.

Betty White later clarified that "Betty" was her legal name and not a shortened version of "Elizabeth" as some people had assumed.

Betty White was the only child of housewife Christine Tess and lighting company executive Horace Logan White.

Betty White was educated in Beverly Hills, where she attended Horace Mann Elementary School and Beverly Hills High School, graduating from the latter in 1939.

Betty White initially aspired to become a forest ranger, but was unable to do so because women were not allowed to serve as rangers at the time.

Betty White instead pursued an interest in writing; she wrote and played the lead in a graduation play at Horace Mann School and discovered her interest in performing.

One month after Betty White graduated from high school, she and a classmate sang songs from The Merry Widow on an experimental television show, at a time when the medium of television itself was still in development.

Betty White found work as a model, and her first professional acting job was at the Bliss Hayden Little Theatre.

Betty White's assignment included driving a PX truck with military supplies to the Hollywood Hills.

Betty White participated in events for troops before they were deployed overseas.

Betty White started to look for radio jobs, where being photogenic did not matter.

Betty White would do just about anything, like singing on a show for no pay.

Betty White appeared on shows such as Blondie, The Great Gildersleeve, and This Is Your FBI.

Betty White was then offered her own radio show, called The Betty White Show.

Betty White began hosting the show by herself in 1952 after Jarvis's departure, spanning five and a half hours of live ad lib television six days per week, over a continuous four-year span.

In 1952, the same year that she began hosting Hollywood on Television, Betty White co-founded Bandy Productions with writer George Tibbles and Don Fedderson, a producer.

Life with Elizabeth was nationally syndicated from 1953 to 1955, allowing Betty White to become one of the few women in television with full creative control in front of and behind the camera.

Betty White said they did not worry about relevance in those days, and that usually the incidents were based on real-life situations that happened to her, the actor who played Alvin, and the writer.

Betty White performed in television advertisements seen on live television in Los Angeles, including a rendition of the "Dr Ross Dog Food" advertisement at KTLA during the 1950s.

Betty White guest-starred on The Millionaire in the 1956 episode "The Virginia Lennart Story", as the owner of a small-town diner who received an anonymous gift of $1 million.

In July 1959, Betty White made her professional stage debut in a week-long production of the play, Third Best Sport, at the Ephrata Legion Star Playhouse in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

Betty White made many appearances on the hit Password show as a celebrity guest from 1961 through 1975.

Betty White married the show's host, Allen Ludden, in 1963.

Betty White subsequently appeared on the show's three updated versions, Password Plus, Super Password, and Million Dollar Password.

In 1963, Betty White starred in a production of The King and I at the St Louis Municipal Opera Theatre, with Charles Korvin co-starring as the king.

Betty White turned the offer down because she didn't want to move permanently to New York City.

Betty White made several appearances in the fourth season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as the "man-hungry" Sue Ann Nivens.

Betty White won two Emmy Awards back-to-back for her role in the hugely popular series, in 1975 and 1976.

In 2010 The Interviews: An Oral History of Television interview, Moore explained that producers, aware of Moore and Betty White's friendship, were initially hesitant to audition Betty White for the role, for fear that if she hadn't been right, it would create awkwardness between the two.

Betty White admitted to People that it was difficult "watching someone else do my parade", although she would soon start a ten-year run as hostess of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for CBS.

Betty White appeared several times on The Carol Burnett Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson appearing in many sketches, and began guest-starring in a number of television movies and television miniseries, including With This Ring, The Best Place to Be, Before and After, and The Gossip Columnist.

From 1983 to 1984, Betty White had a recurring role playing Ellen Harper Jackson on the series Mama's Family, along with future Golden Girls co-star Rue McClanahan.

Betty White had originated this character in a series of sketches on The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s.

In 1985, Betty White scored her second signature role and the biggest hit of her career as the St Olaf, Minnesota native Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls.

Betty White won one Emmy Award, for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series, for the first season of The Golden Girls and was nominated in that category every year of the show's run.

Betty White was originally offered the role of Blanche in The Golden Girls, and Rue McClanahan was offered the role of Rose.

Betty White originally had doubts about her ability to play Rose, until Sandrich explained to her that Rose was "terminally naive".

Betty White won an Emmy in 1996 for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, appearing as herself on an episode of The John Larroquette Show.

In that episode, titled "Here We Go Again", a parody on Sunset Boulevard, a diva-like Betty White convinces Larroquette to help write her memoir.

In December 2006, Betty White joined the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful in the role of Ann Douglas, the long-lost mother of the show's matriarch, Stephanie Forrester, played by Susan Flannery.

Betty White began a recurring role in ABC's Boston Legal from 2005 to 2008 as the calculating, blackmailing gossip-monger Catherine Piper, a role she originally played as a guest star on The Practice in 2004.

In 2009, Betty White starred in the romantic comedy The Proposal alongside Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.

Betty White appeared, alongside Abe Vigoda, in the company's advertisement for the candy during the 2010 Super Bowl XLIV.

In June 2010, Betty White took on the role of Elka Ostrovsky, the house caretaker on TV Land's original sitcom Hot in Cleveland along with Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, and Wendie Malick.

Betty White was only meant to appear in the pilot of the show but was asked to stay on for the entire series.

Betty White launched her own clothing line on July 22,2010, which features shirts with her face on them.

Betty White's success continued in 2012 with her first Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for her bestseller If You Ask Me.

Betty White won the UCLA Jack Benny Award for Comedy, recognizing her significant contribution to comedy in television, and was roasted at the New York Friars Club.

On February 15,2015, Betty White made her final appearance on Saturday Night Live when she attended the 40th Anniversary Special.

Betty White participated in "The Californians" sketch alongside members of the current SNL cast members as well as Bill Hader, Taylor Swift and Kerry Washington.

In 2019, Betty White appeared in Pixar's Toy Story 4, providing the voice of Bitey Betty White, a toy tiger that was named after her.

Betty White won five Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, and received a Los Angeles Emmy Award in 1952.

Betty White won three American Comedy Awards, and two Viewers for Quality Television Awards.

Betty White was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at Hollywood Boulevard alongside the star of her late husband Allen Ludden.

In 2009, Betty White received the TCA Career Achievement Award from the Television Critics Association.

Betty White was the recipient of The Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters Golden Ike Award and the Genii Award from the Alliance for Women in Media in 1976.

Betty White was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in December 2010.

Betty White said in previous interviews that she wanted to be a forest ranger as a little girl but that women were not allowed to do that then.

When Betty White received the honor, more than one-third of Forest Service employees were women.

In January 2011, Betty White received a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her role as Elka Ostrovsky in Hot in Cleveland.

Betty White won the same award again in 2012 and later received a third nomination.

In October 2011, Betty White was awarded an honorary degree and a white doctor's coat by Washington State University at the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association's centennial gala in Yakima, Washington.

In 2017, after 70 years in the industry, Betty White was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Betty White married Hollywood talent agent Lane Allen in 1947, and they divorced in 1949 because he wanted to start a family but she wanted to focus on her career rather than having children.

On June 14,1963, Betty White married television host Allen Ludden, whom she had met as a celebrity guest on his game show Password in 1961.

Betty White proposed to her at least twice before she accepted, and they remained married until he died from stomach cancer in Los Angeles on June 9,1981.

Betty White attended the Unity Church, part of the New Thought movement.

Betty White's death was met with statements of sympathy and tributes from many people and organizations.

The United States Army released a statement as Betty White had volunteered with the American Women's Voluntary Services during World War II.

Betty White's estate donated a substantial portion of her television memorabilia to the National Comedy Center, including wardrobe pieces, annotated notes, and five of her Emmy Awards.

Betty White was a pet enthusiast and animal welfare advocate, who worked with organizations including the Los Angeles Zoo Commission, The Morris Animal Foundation, African Wildlife Foundation, and Actors and Others for Animals.

Betty White was a member of the board of directors of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association since 1974.

Additionally, Betty White served the association as a Zoo Commissioner for eight years.

Betty White donated nearly $100,000 to the zoo in the month of April 2008 alone.

Betty White served as a judge at the 2011 American Humane Hero Dog Awards ceremony.

Betty White served as a judge alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Wendy Diamond for the American Humane's Hero Dog Awards on the Hallmark Channel on November 8,2011.

In 1954, as The Betty White Show became national across the United States, White was criticized by many in the Southern states for having Arthur Duncan, a Black tap dancer, on her variety show and was asked to remove him.

In 2017, sixty-three years after the show was canceled, Duncan appeared as a surprise guest on the series premiere of the reality talent series Little Big Shots: Forever Young, where he performed and reunited with Betty White, later thanking her again for her support.

In September 2011, Betty White teamed up with English singer Luciana to produce a remix of her song "I'm Still Hot".

In February 2012, Betty White received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for the audio recording of the book.