Jan 1, 2021: White, the 99-year-old “Golden Girls” star, TV trailblazer and cultural icon whose legendary career spanned eight decades, died Thursday night at her home in Brentwood.
White died just shy of what would have been a milestone 100th birthday on Jan. 17. Her Instagram page was building up to the event.
President Joe Biden called White a “cultural icon.” The President wrote, “Betty White brought a smile to the lips of generations of Americans. She’s a cultural icon who will be sorely missed. Jill and I are thinking of her family and all those who loved her this New Year’s Eve.”
Hollywood stars, from Ryan Reynolds to Seth Meyers, took to social media on Friday to pay tribute to the late Betty White.
Sandra Bullock, White’s co-star in “The Proposal” said, “I don’t drink vodka … but I will tonight, on ice, with a slice of lemon with a hot dog on the other side and just be ok being sad. I’ll have to buy some rose-colored glasses because Betty was that for all of us,” said the actress.
Betty White’s personal philosophy of death and greatness has resurfaced as part of an uncovered older clip that took social media by storm shortly after her death. The clip was uploaded to CBS Sunday Morning’s official Twitter account to pay tribute to the icon’s life and legacy. There, White made a journey down Memory Lane, citing a lesson his mother had always taught her.
She started by telling the host, “My mother had the most wonderful outlook on death. “She would always say, ‘Nobody knows.”
“People think they do — you can believe whatever you want to believe what happens at that last moment — but nobody ever knows until it happens.’”
White was gearing up to celebrate her 100th birthday on Jan. 17. Talking to People Magazine ahead of her centennial year, in a cover story, White opened up about how she was feeling about turning 100 years old.
“I’m so lucky to be in such good health and feel so good at this age,” said the veteran actress. “It’s amazing.”
Born Jan. 17, 1922, in Oak Park Illinois, Betty Marion White, an only child, moved with her parents, traveling salesman and electrical engineer Horace White and homemaker Tess Curts White, to Los Angeles during the Great Depression.
Whites’s career dated back to the early days of the medium and that spanned decades. Long before her hilarious turns on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the ’70s and The Golden Girls in the ’80s, in 1952 she appeared in the I Love Lucy-like Life with Elizabeth, a show she also produced.
White’s career in entertainment began in the 1940s after she graduated from high school. She began working in radio and later got her own show, called The Betty White Show. In 1949, she became co-host with Al Jarvis on his daily variety show Hollywood on Television in Los Angeles. She was nominated for her first Emmy Award in 1951 as best actress on television. It was the first award and category in the new award show designated specifically for women in television.
Shortly after her appearance in the Golden Girls, she starred in a series of TV movies in the early 2000s before starring as Catherine Piper in Boston Legal from 2005–08 and later as Ann Douglas in The Bold and the Beautiful from 2006–09.
White was nominated three times for the Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series in 2011, 2012 and 2013. She won the first two times. Throughout her long career, she was nominated for 21 Primetime Emmys, with five total wins.
Meanwhile Betty White’s special tribute filmed for her 100th birthday will not be postponed after her death on New Year’s Eve.
The film titled, Betty White: 100 Years Young – A Birthday Celebration was prepared to wish the star on January 17 however her sudden demise on at the age of 99 left everyone shocked.
The film’s producers Steve Boettcher and Mike Trinklein announced that the special will still premiere.
“We are thankful for the many decades of delight she brought to everyone. Betty always said she was the ‘luckiest broad on two feet’ to have had a career as long as she did. And honestly, we were the lucky ones to have had her for so long.”
“We will go forward with our plans to show the film on Jan. 17 in hopes our film will provide a way for all who loved her to celebrate her life — and experience what made her such a national treasure,” they said.
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