Comedic actress Betty White, who capped a career of more than 80 years by becoming America’s geriatric sweetheart after Emmy-winning roles on television sitcoms “The Golden Girls” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” has died, less than three weeks shy of her 100th birthday, People magazine reported on Friday, quoting her agent.
Her agent and close friend Jeff Witjas told the magazine: “Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever.”
In a youth-driven entertainment industry where an actress over 40 is facing career twilight, White was an elderly anomaly who was a star in her 60s and a pop culture phenomenon in her 80s and 90s.
Playing on her imminent likability, White was still starring in a TV sitcom, “Hot in Cleveland,” at age 92 until it was canceled in late 2014.
White said her longevity was a result of good health, good fortune and loving her work.
“It’s incredible that I’m still in this business and that you are still putting up with me,” White said in an appearance at the 2018 Emmy Awards ceremony, where she was honored for her long career. “It’s incredible that you can stay in a career this long and still have people put up with you. I wish they did that at home.”
White was not afraid to mock herself and throw out a joke about her sex life or a snarky crack that one would not expect from a sweet-smiling, white-haired elderly woman. She was frequently asked if, after such a long career, there was anything she still wanted to do and the standard response was: “Robert Redford.”
“Old age hasn’t diminished her,” the New York Times wrote in 2013. “It has given her a second wind.”
Betty Marion White was born on Jan. 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois, and her family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, where she attended Beverly Hills High School.
White started her entertainment career in radio in the late 1930s and by 1939 had made her TV debut singing on an experimental channel in Los Angeles. After serving in the American Women’s Voluntary Service, which helped the U.S. effort during World War Two, she was a regular on “Hollywood on Television,” a daily five-hour live variety show, in 1949.
A few years later she became a pioneering woman in television by co-founding a production company and serving as a co-creator, producer and star of the 1950s sitcom “Life With Elizabeth.”–Reuters
