Age, Biography, and Wiki
Betty White passed away on December 31, 2021, at the age of 99. She was born to Christine Tess Cachikis and Horace Logan White and was the only child in her family. Throughout her life, White became a household name for her comedic genius and versatility in television and film.
| Occupation | Civil Rights Activists |
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| Date of Birth | 17 January 1922 |
| Age | 103 Years |
| Birth Place | Oak Park, Illinois, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Capricorn |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 31 December, 2021 |
| Died Place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Betty White stood at a height of 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m), though her weight and other specific measurements are not widely documented.
| Height | 63 m |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Betty White was married three times: to Dick Barker, Lane Allen, and finally to Allen Ludden, whom she married in 1963 and remained with until his death in 1981. She never remarried after Ludden's passing and did not have any biological children but was a stepmother to Ludden's three children.
She later clarified that "Betty" was her legal name and not a shortened version of "Elizabeth" as some people had assumed. She was the only child of housewife Christine Tess (née Cachikis) and lighting company executive Horace Logan White. Her father was from Michigan. White's maternal grandfather was Greek, her paternal grandfather was Danish, both of her grandmothers were Canadians of English descent, and her other ancestry included Welsh. When she was one year old, her family moved to Alhambra, California, and later to Los Angeles during the Great Depression. To make extra money, her father built crystal radios and sold them wherever he could. Since it was the height of the Depression and hardly anyone had a sizable income, he would trade the radios for other goods, which sometimes included dogs.
In 1952, the same year that she began hosting Hollywood on Television, White co-founded Bandy Productions with writer George Tibbles and Don Fedderson, a producer. The trio worked to create new shows using existing characters from sketches shown on Hollywood on Television. White, Fedderson, and Tibbles created the television comedy Life with Elizabeth, with White portraying the title character. The show was originally a live production on KLAC-TV in 1951, and won White a Los Angeles Emmy Award in 1952. Life with Elizabeth was nationally syndicated from 1953 to 1955, allowing White to become one of the few women in television with full creative control in front of and behind the camera. The show was unusual for a sitcom in the 1950s because it was co-produced and owned by a twenty-eight-year-old woman who still lived with her parents. 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, Del Moore (who played Alvin), and the writer. White also 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. She guest-starred on The Millionaire in the 1956 episode "The Virginia Lennart Story", as the owner of a small-town diner who receives an anonymous gift of $1 million.
Mary Tyler Moore and her husband Grant Tinker were close friends with White and her husband Allen Ludden. In a 2010 The Interviews: An Oral History of Television interview, Moore explained that producers, aware of Moore and White's friendship, were initially hesitant to audition White for the role, for fear that if she did not work out, it would create awkwardness between the two.
White had a strained relationship with her The Golden Girls co-star Bea Arthur on and off the set of their television show, commenting that Arthur "was not that fond of me" and that "she found me a pain in the neck sometimes. It was my positive attitude – and that made Bea mad sometimes. Sometimes if I was happy, she'd be furious." After Arthur's death in 2009, White said, "I knew it would hurt, I just didn't know it would hurt this much." Despite their differences, The Golden Girls was a positive experience for both actresses and they had great mutual respect for the show, their roles, and the achievements made as an ensemble cast.
In December 2006, White joined the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful in the role of Ann Douglas (where she would make 22 appearances), the long-lost mother of the show's matriarch, Stephanie Forrester, played by Susan Flannery. She also 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.
White won five Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards (including the 2015 Daytime Emmy for Lifetime Achievement), and received a Los Angeles Emmy Award in 1952. White was the first woman to have received an Emmy in all performing comedic categories, and also holds the record for longest span between Emmy nominations for performances—her first was in 1951 and her last was in 2014, a span of over 60 years. In 2015, she received the Lifetime Achievement Daytime Emmy. She also won three American Comedy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990), and two Viewers for Quality Television Awards. She 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, White received the TCA Career Achievement Award from the Television Critics Association.
Writer John Steinbeck was in White and Ludden's group of high-profile friends, and White wrote about the friendship in her 2011 book If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't). Ludden had attended the same school as actress Elaine Anderson (Steinbeck's future wife) and Steinbeck later gave an early draft of his Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech to Ludden as a birthday gift. The couple also had a close friendship with blind musician and motivational speaker Tom Sullivan, whom they had met in 1968 while Sullivan was singing in a small club at the same time that White and Ludden were performing in a play on Cape Cod. White and Sullivan co-wrote a book, Leading Lady, about Sullivan's first seeing eye dog, who lived with White after being retired.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Dick Barker (m. 1945-1945) Lane Allen (m. 1947-1949) Allen Ludden (m. 1963-1981) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of her death, Betty White's net worth was estimated at $75 million, largely derived from her extensive career in television and film, as well as her book sales. After her passing, her estate sold two homes, one in Brentwood for around $5 million and another in Carmel for over $10 million. Additionally, an estate sale of her personal items raised $4 million, with proceeds going to charities supporting animals and the environment.
After the war, White made the rounds to movie studios looking for work, but was turned down because she was "not photogenic". She started to look for radio jobs, where being photogenic did not matter. Her first radio jobs included reading commercials and playing bit parts, and sometimes even doing crowd noises. She made about five dollars a show. She would do just about anything, like singing on a show for no pay. She appeared on shows such as Blondie, The Great Gildersleeve, and This Is Your FBI. She was then offered her own radio show, called The Betty White Show. In 1949, she began appearing as co-host with Al Jarvis on his daily live television variety show Hollywood on Television, originally called Make Believe Ballroom, on KFWB and then on KLAC-TV (now KCOP-TV) in Los Angeles.
Career, Business, and Investments
Betty White's career spanned over eight decades, with notable roles in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Golden Girls." She was a prolific actress, comedian, and television host, known for her wit and charm. Her business ventures included real estate investments, such as properties in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Brentwood, California. White was also a dedicated animal activist and supported various animal charities throughout her life.
Betty Marion Ludden ( White; January 17, 1922 –December 31, 2021), known professionally as Betty White, was an American actress and comedian. A pioneer of early television with a career spanning almost seven decades, she was noted for her vast number of television appearances, acting in sitcoms, sketch comedy, and game shows.
White's biggest roles include Sue Ann Nivens on the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973–1977), Rose Nylund on the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–1992), and Elka Ostrovsky on the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland (2010–2015). She had a late career resurgence when she starred in the romantic comedy film The Proposal (2009) and hosted Saturday Night Live the following year, garnering her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. The 2018 documentary Betty White: First Lady of Television detailed her life and career.
For her lengthy work in radio, television, and film, White twice earned the Guinness World Record for the longest TV career by a female entertainer in both 2014 and 2018. She received various awards and nominations, including seven Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995.
White was educated in Beverly Hills, where she attended Horace Mann Elementary School and Beverly Hills High School, graduating from the latter in 1939. Her interest in wildlife was sparked by family vacations to the Sierra Nevada. She 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. She 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. Inspired by her idols Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, she decided to pursue a career as an actress.
One month after 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. She found work as a model, and her first professional acting job was at the Bliss Hayden Little Theatre. After the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, she volunteered for the American Women's Voluntary Services. Her assignment included driving a PX truck with military supplies to the Hollywood Hills. She also participated in events for troops before they were deployed overseas. Commenting on her wartime service, she later said that it was "a strange time and out of balance with everything".
The sitcom did give White some positive experiences: she first met Lucille Ball while working on it, as both Date With the Angels and I Love Lucy were filmed on the same Culver Studios lot. The two quickly struck up a friendship over their accomplishments in taking on the male-dominated television business of the 1950s. They relied on one another through divorce, illness, personal loss, and even competed against one another on various game shows. In July 1959, 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.
NBC offered her an anchor job on their flagship breakfast television show Today. She turned the offer down because she did not want to move permanently to New York City (where Today is produced). The job eventually went to Barbara Walters. Through the 1950s and 1960s, White began a nineteen-year run as hostess and commentator on the annual Rose Parade broadcast on NBC (co-hosting with Roy Neal and later Lorne Greene), and appeared on a number of late-night talk shows, including Jack Paar's The Tonight Show, and various other daytime game shows.
From 1983 to 1984, White had a recurring role playing Ellen Harper-Jackson on the series Mama's Family, along with future Golden Girls co-star Rue McClanahan. White had originated this character in a series of sketches on The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s. In 1985, 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. The series chronicled the lives of four widowed or divorced women in their "golden years" who shared a home in Miami. The Golden Girls, which also starred Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, and Rue McClanahan, was immensely successful and ran from 1985 through 1992. White won one Primetime Emmy Award, for "Outstanding Lead 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 (Getty was also nominated every year, but in the supporting actress category).
In 2009, White starred in the romantic comedy The Proposal alongside Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Also in 2009, the candy company Mars, Incorporated launched a global campaign for their Snickers bar; the campaign's slogan was: "You're not you when you're hungry". White appeared, alongside Abe Vigoda, in the company's advertisement for the candy during the 2010 Super Bowl XLIV. The advertisement became popular, and won the top spot on the Super Bowl Ad Meter.
A Betty White calendar for 2011 was published in late 2010. The calendar features photos from White's career and with various animals. She also launched her own clothing line on July 22, 2010, which features shirts with her face on them. All proceeds go to various animal charities she supported.
In 2017, after 70 years in the industry, White was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At age 95, this made her the oldest new member at the time.
While volunteering with the American Women's Voluntary Services, White met Air Force P-38 pilot Dick Barker. After the war, they were married in 1945 and moved to Belle Center, Ohio, where Barker owned a chicken farm; he wanted to embrace a simpler life, but White did not enjoy doing so. They returned to Los Angeles and divorced within a year. She 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.
A supporter and advocate of LGBT rights, White said in 2010, "If a couple has been together all that time – and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones – I think it's fine if they want to get married. I don't know how people can get so anti-something. Mind your own business, take care of your affairs, and don't worry about other people so much." In a 2011 interview, she revealed that she always knew her close friend Liberace was gay and that she sometimes accompanied him to premieres to help him hide it.
Social Network
Although Betty White passed away in 2021, her legacy continues to inspire fans across social media platforms. While she was not particularly active on social media herself, her work and achievements are regularly celebrated and shared by fans and entertainment personalities.
From 1952 to 1954, White hosted and produced her own daily talk/variety show, The Betty White Show, first on KLAC-TV and then on NBC (her first television, but second show to feature that title). Like her sitcom, she had creative control over the series, and was able to hire a female director. In a first for American network variety television, her show featured an African-American performer, but the show faced criticism for the inclusion of tap dancer Arthur Duncan as a regular cast member. The criticism followed when NBC expanded the show nationally. Local Southern stations in the Jim Crow era threatened to boycott unless Duncan was removed from the series. In response, White said "I'm sorry. Live with it", and gave Duncan more airtime. Initially a ratings success, the show repeatedly changed time slots and suffered lower viewership. By the end of the year, NBC quietly cancelled the series.
White made several appearances in the fourth season (1973–74) of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as the "man-hungry" Sue Ann Nivens. "We need somebody who can play sickeningly sweet, like Betty White", Moore suggested at a production meeting, which resulted in the casting of White herself. Although considering the role a highlight of her career, White described the character's image as "icky sweet", feeling she was the very definition of feminine passivity, owing to the fact she always satirized her own persona onscreen in just such a way. The Mary Tyler Moore Show producers made Sue Ann Nivens a regular character and brought White into the main cast starting with the fifth season, after Valerie Harper, who played Rhoda Morgenstern, left the program. A running gag was how Sue Ann's aggressive, cynical personality was the complete opposite of her relentlessly perky TV persona on the fictional WJM-TV show, The Happy Homemaker. White won two Emmy Awards back-to-back, in 1975 and 1976, for her role in the hugely popular series.
After The Golden Palace ended, White guest-starred on a number of television programs including Suddenly Susan, The Practice, and Yes, Dear where she received Emmy nominations for her individual appearances. She 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 White convinces Larroquette to help write her memoir. At one point, Golden Girls co-stars McClanahan and Getty appear as themselves. Larroquette is forced to dress in drag as Bea Arthur, when all four appear in public as the "original" cast members. White also appeared in films such as Lake Placid (1999) and Bringing Down the House (2003) during this time.
Following the success of the Snickers advertisement, a grassroots campaign on Facebook called "Betty White to Host SNL (Please)" began in January 2010. The group was approaching 500,000 members when NBC confirmed on March 11, 2010, that White would in fact host Saturday Night Live on May 8. The appearance made her, at age 88, the oldest person to host the show, beating Miskel Spillman, the winner of SNL's "Anybody Can Host" contest, who was 80 when she hosted in 1977. In her opening monologue, White thanked Facebook and joked that she "didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time." The appearance earned her a 2010 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. White and Jean Smart are the only actresses to have wins in all three comedy Emmy categories.
On August 18, 2018, White's career was celebrated in a PBS documentary called Betty White: First Lady of Television. The documentary was filmed over a period of ten years, and featured archived footage and interviews from colleagues and friends. In 2019, White appeared in Pixar's Toy Story 4, providing the voice of Bitey White, a toy tiger that was named after her. The other toys she shared a scene with were named and played by Carol Burnett, Carl Reiner, and Mel Brooks. White commented that "It was wonderful the way they incorporated our names into the characters ... And I'm a sucker for animals, so the tiger was perfect!"
In December 2021, before White's death, it was announced that a new documentary-style film about her, Betty White: A Celebration would be released in U.S. theatres on what would have been her 100th birthday, January 17, 2022. It features a cast of friends including Ryan Reynolds, Tina Fey, Robert Redford, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Jay Leno, Carol Burnett, Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Kimmel, Valerie Bertinelli, James Corden, Wendie Malick, and Jennifer Love Hewitt. In addition to the planned documentary, People magazine featured her as the cover story of its January 10, 2022, newsstand publication and a separate commemorative edition to celebrate the anticipated milestone, which were released days before her death.
Following White's death, producers Steve Boettcher and Mike Trinklein of the event distributors Fathom Events announced in a Facebook post that the pre-filmed production would be going ahead as scheduled.
White and Ludden had no children together, though she was the stepmother of his three children with Margaret McGloin Ludden, who had died of cancer in 1961. During an interview on Larry King Live, she was asked why she never remarried after Ludden's death. She replied, "Once you've had the best, who needs the rest?" When asked by James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio in 2010 what she would like God to say to her if Heaven exists, she replied, "Come on in, Betty. Here's Allen."
In September 2011, White teamed up with English singer Luciana to produce a remix of her song "I'm Still Hot". The song was released digitally on September 22 and the video later premiered on October 6. It was made for a campaign for a life settlement company, The Lifeline Program, and it is her only commercial single to date, peaking at number 1 on the Dance Club Songs chart. White also covered songs on her live television shows, such as "Nevertheless I'm in Love with You", "It's a Good Day", "Getting to Know You" and "A 'No' That Sounds like 'Yes'".
Education
Betty White attended Horace Mann Elementary School and Beverly Hills High School, graduating from the latter in 1939.
Betty White's impact on the entertainment industry remains significant, with her iconic roles still entertaining audiences today. Despite her passing, her legacy as a pioneering figure in television comedy continues to inspire new generations of actors and comedians.
In October 2011, 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.
White published several books. In August 2010, she entered a deal with G.P. Putnam's Sons to produce two more books, the first of which, If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't), was released in 2011. In February 2012, White received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for the audio recording of the book.
