Betty White Everything Old is New Again

Betty White isn’t all that old. She is only 90 (going on 91 next year). But if you had watched her as the hilarious, boisterous guest-host of “Saturday Night Live” recently, you would swear she is going on 39.

She gives new meaning to that classic song – do you remember it? – “Everything Old is New Again.”

Watch Ann Reinking dancing to “Everything Old is New Again” from the movie, “All That Jazz”

Let me tell you what I know about Betty White. Most of us know her as the naïve and unsophisticated Rose Nylund from the long-running “Golden Girls” television show. More about that show later. But Betty has had a very long and varied 61-year career in show business in addition to that TV show.

She was born in Oakland Park, Illinois January 17, 1922 and named Betty Marion White. In her autobiography, she states she was named Betty and not Elizabeth because her parents did not want her to be nicknamed Beth, Liza, Ellie, etc. Her parents, Tess and Horace White (of German and Greek ancestry), moved across the country to Los Angeles, California when Betty was only two years old.

Betty attended Beverly Hills High School and appeared in leading roles in various plays while there. Her high school is well known for some other famous graduates including Angelina Jolie, Nicolas Cage, Lenny Kravitz, David Schwimmer, Gina Gershon, Rhonda Fleming, Jackie Cooper, Rob Reiner, Corbin Bernsen and Antonio Sabato, Jr., to name a few.

After graduating, Betty took roles in local theater – the Bliss-Hayden-Little-Theater-Group, and soon began working on radio in the Los Angeles area. In the 40s she appeared on shows such as “Blondie,” “The Great Gildersleeve,” and “This is Your FBI.” Her first television break came in 1949, when she became the “girl Friday” for host Al Jarvis’ music and interview show on local TV station KLAC. Jarvis left the show in 1952 and Betty became the new host. That year, she and two male partners formed Bandy Productions which would launch her first situation comedy, "Life with Elizabeth" (1952-1955). She was nominated for her first Emmy in 1952 for her role on that show and won.

In 1954 she had her own talk show briefly, “The Betty White Show,” in which she demonstrated her friendly, neighbor-next-door persona that made audiences so comfortable.

Footnote: Betty was one of only two women in the early days of television to be a TV triple-threat: co-creator, producer and star. Gertrude Berg was the other – creator/writer, producer and star.

Footnote: Betty was named the honorary Mayor of Hollywood in 1955.

Betty had three husbands – no, not all at the same time. She was married to Frederick (Dick) Barker for six months in`1945 and divorced; married to Lane Allan for two years (1947-1949) and divorced; and married to Allen Ludden, game show host, for 18 years from 1963 until his death, June 9, 1981.

Although best known as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on the classic sitcom, “Mary Tyler Moore” (1970) and the spacey Rose Nylund on “The Golden Girls,” Betty was a frequent and favorite guest celebrity/panelist on numerous game shows including every version of “Password” (1961), “The Hollywood Squares” (1965), “Match Game” (1973) and “The $10,000 Pyramid” (1973) as well as many others.

Footnote: Betty’s film debut was the role of Kansas Senator Elizabeth Ames Adams in the drama, ”Advise and Consent” (1962).

Betty was originally considered for the role of the sexpot, Blanche, on “The Golden Girls” (1985) However, Betty had already played the aggressive man-hunter, Sue Ann Nivens, on “Mary Tyler Moore” (1970), and Rue McClanahan had played the introverted Vivian on "Maude” (1972). So the producers decided it was best not to have these two actresses reprise similar characters. Therefore, Betty got the part of naïve Rose Nylund and Rue played the oversexed (to put it mildly) Blanche.

Fast forward to "Saturday Night Live" May 8, 2010. A wildly successful viral marketing campaign was launched by Facebook fans that resulted in Betty White becoming a host on SNL. During her opening monologue, Betty joked that she made her live television debut in 1952 because “then they didn’t know how to tape things. I don’t know what this show’s excuse is.”

“I really have to thank Facebook,” Betty says, “I didn’t know what Facebook was and now that I do know what it is, it sounds like a huge waste of time. I would never think that people on it are losers, but that's only because I'm polite," she joked with her impeccable comic timing. “At my age, if I want to connect with old friends, I need a Ouija board. Facebook just sounds like a drag. In my day, seeing pictures of people's vacations was considered a punishment."

Betty first appeared in a MacGruber sketch (a take-off film imitating the former TV hero, McGyver) as -- you guessed it -- the incompetent, bumbling gadget guy's grandmother. In true MacGruber fashion, Betty did nothing more than add to his inefficiency by distracting the wannabe-hero from diffusing a bomb.

Next was the skit, “Delicious Dish,” in which White's muffin (don’t ask!) was the topic of discussion. "My muffin hasn't had a cherry since 1939," Betty declared while Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer chomped on her "yeasty, crusty" muffins.

Many of the jokes and skits featured her estimable age, as the majority of the punch lines were either how she's the old gal in the room, or she's-old-but-making-shocking-statements. “Entertainment Weekly” declared that she was "funny, vulgar and totally charming."

Even the “New York Times” gushed that Betty’s show "was one of the strongest outings of the season. With energy, enthusiasm and plain old laughs, Ms. White and the SNL cast and crew more than delivered on this much promoted episode's promise."

At the end, the SNL cast sang the “Golden Girls” theme song, “Thank You for Being a Friend” as a tribute to White -- with the Golden Girl herself chiming in with a screaming, punk rock version of the tune.

Back to the past. Between 1958 and 1973, Betty White remained in the public eye as a popular guest panelist on various TV game shows, a frequent fixture on talk shows, and a pitchwoman for commercial products. Many younger fans had no idea she was really an actor. Most thought of her as a personality who makes a career out of being a panelist.

Betty was a regular as a panelist on the game show, “Password” (1961–1975), where she met the show's host, Allen Ludden, whom she married in 1963. In the 70s and 80s, she appeared on the updated versions of Password (“Password Plus” and “Super Password”). She also made frequent game show appearances on “What's My Line?”, “To Tell the Truth”, “Match Game” and “$10,000 Pyramid”.

Footnote: Both Password and Pyramid were created by her friend, Bob Stewart. Betty was even offered the chance to host her own game show which she declined.

The perception about Betty White as a wholesome TV personality changed forever in 1973 when her friends, Mary Tyler Moore, and husband, Grant Tinker, asked her to play a one-shot guest appearance as Sue Ann Nivens on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” This inspired casting-against-type of Betty as a middle-aged, man-hungry, quick-with-a-quip Sue Ann turned into a five-season full-time gig (1973-1977) and won her two Emmy Awards and a host of new fans. When that show ended, Betty was rushed into her own "The Betty White Show" as Joyce Whitman, fading TV star. The show lasted one season and Betty was back on game shows, and hosting the annual Tournament of Roses parade on NBC, which she had done since 1970.

Betty also found time to appear in several TV movies including "With this Ring" (ABC1978) and "The Best Place to Be" (NBC 1979). From 1983 through 1986, she played Ellen Harper Jackson on the hit show, “Mama's Family” together with her future “Golden Girls” co-star Rue McClanahan.

Footnote: Betty appeared numerous times on the “Tonight Show” in skits with Jack Paar and later Johnny Carson.

Betty then landed her most memorable role as the sweet but slightly ditzy Rose Nylund on “The Golden Girls” (NBC), a show about the lives of four widowed or divorced senior citizens living together in a home in Miami, Florida. This program was immensely successful and ran from 1985 through 1992. Originally, Betty wasn’t certain she could do justice to the role of Rose who was written as such an incredibly innocent and trusting person. The creator of the show took her aside and explained that she should not play Rose as stupid, but as someone who is “terminally naïve” - an individual who always believed the first explanation she heard.

Footnote: Betty won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for the first season of “The Golden Girls” and was nominated every year of the show's eight-year run. She had the “terminally naïve” persona down pat.

Footnote: Estelle Getty was imported from the Broadway stage to play the part of Bea Arthur's mother in "Golden Girls." Both women were the same age, 62 years young.

Betty was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame together with the star of her late husband, Allen Ludden. When “Golden Girls" ended in 1992, Betty joined Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty on "The Golden Palace" which moved their characters to a new network (CBS) and a new locale - a modest hotel. The show flopped, but CBS put Betty into "Bob", the network's latest series with Bob Newhart, in the hopes of adding some adrenaline into fading ratings. The series died despite her efforts.

But not Betty’s popularity. She became a frequent commercial spokesperson, and eager to return to a series, she accepted the part of Shirley, mother to Marie Osmond in the sitcom, "Maybe This Time" (ABC 1995). This time, her character was oft-married and free-spirited, but she created an entirely new persona, again demonstrating her extraordinarily wide range.

Footnote: Betty was offered the role of Helen Hunt’s mother in the film, “As Good as it Gets” (1997) but turned it down because she objected to the treatment of the dog in the movie.

Within the span of four years, Betty was cast in several features (television and big screen), and co-starred in numerous television series including the short-lived, "Me & George" (1998) and "Ladies Man" (1999). Her voice was the main focus as she brought life to the animated characters in the family feature, "Whispers: An Elephant's Tale" (2000). and as Aunt Sophie in the child-popular series, "The Wild Thornberry's: The Origin of Donnie" (2001).

Footnote: Betty had a supporting role in the comedy slash horror film, “Lake Placid,” (1999) as a seemingly sweet, innocent widow with a shocking foul mouth who is later revealed to have raised and fed the giant crocodile (the film’s nemesis) which had accidentally eaten her husband.

In 2003, Betty returned to the big screen in the hilarious comedy "Bringing Down the House," which co-starred Steve Martin and Queen Latifah. Betty played the role of Steve's nosy, prudish neighbor. She also became a popular guest star on a variety of TV series, including "Ally McBeal," "The Simpsons," "King of the Hill," "Everwood" and "Malcolm in the Middle." In addition to a role on the popular sit-com "That 70s Show," she was especially appealing as the sweet-smiling but acid-tongued Catherine Piper, a recurring role she originated on the legal drama "The Practice" in 2004, and carried over into the follow-up series, "Boston Legal."

In the television broadcast, “TV Land Awards” (2007), Betty starred in a parody of the “Ugly Betty” program, aptly titled “Ugly Betty White.” She played the title character with Charo playing her sister. Because of her outstanding performance, the producers signed her to play herself as the victim of Wilhemina Slater’s temper as they both vie for a cab in the episode, “Bananas for Betty” which aired December 6, 2007.

Betty has won six Emmy Awards, three American Comedy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990), and two Viewers for Quality Television Awards.In 1995, she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. She has also won numerous awards for her charitable work with animals.

In January, 2010, she received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. That same month she was seen in a hilarious Super Bowl football commercial. Hard to say which she enjoyed more.

Betty, You never fail to connect with your audience. That's the definition of a legend.

© Copyright BJ Rakow 2010, 2011. All rights reserved. Author, "Much of What You Know about Job Search just Ain't So." An enlightening book about job search with dynamic facts about interviewing, negotiating, networking, and creating a powerful resume.