Betty White

After several guest appearances on various TV shows and starring in her own series, The Betty White Show, Betty White‘s breakout role was in The Golden Girls, which ran from 1985-1992 and earned her an Emmy Award. Later in her career, White took on bit roles in TV shows like Boston Legal and films including The Proposal.

She had creative control over her show The Betty White Show and hired a female director, African-American co-star and tap dancer Arthur Duncan. When the show began to air more nationally the southern areas that were still under the Jim Crow laws did not like this and it lead to lower viewership. NBC later softly cancelled the show in 1954.

When White appeared in an advertisement for Snickers, which aired during the 2010 Super Bowl, her notoriety hit a new high. The commercial prompted a grassroots Facebook fan campaign for White to host Saturday Night Live, which she did on May 8, 2010 to huge ratings. In June 2010, White co-starred with Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick on the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland, appearing as a caretaker.

White was married to Air Force pilot Dick Barker in 1945. After they married, they moved to Ohio where he had a chicken farm and wanted to embrace a slower lifestyle. White grew unhappy with the change in location and they moved back to Los Angeles and divorced a year later. She then married talent agent Lane Allen in 1947 who wanted children and White wanted to focus on her career so they divorced after two years of marriage. In 1963, after being proposed to two times White married the television host Allen Ludden. They were married until 1981 when he died of stomach cancer. They had no children together

After having a stroke just a few days prior, on December 31, 2021 Betty White passed away at the age of 99.