About Betty White
Born January 17, 1922, legendary, celebrated
comedic actor Betty White got her start locally on a Los Angeles television station as the "telephone girl" for video emcee Al Jarvis
(who would later become better known as the host of a teen dance show).
LOVE BETTY WHITE? LET THE OLDIES TELEVISION COMMUNITY KNOW!
By early 1950 she was one of the stars of the daily, five-hour series Hollywood on Television. One of the highlights of this program was a husband and wife sketch titled "Life With Elizabeth," which when committed to film and syndicated nationally in 1952 became White's first starring TV sitcom
reworked years later as Date With The Angels co-starring Bill Williams as her not too swift husband.
During that era, Betty White hosted network variety series in 1954 on NBC,
Date With The Angels peaked in the 1957-58 season.
For the next 15 years she made guest appearances on various variety and quiz show efforts, and toured the straw-hat theatrical circuit in such plays as Critics Choice and Who Was That Lady, often appearing opposite her husband, TV personality Allen Ludden.
Two years after hosting the 1971 syndicated informational series The Pet Set, Betty White guest-starred as libidinous "Happy Homemaker" Sue Ann Nivens on the fourth season opener of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. This Emmy-winning episode led to White being cast as an MTM regular; she remained with the series until its final episode in 1977.
Betty then starred on her own short-lived sitcom (again titled The Betty White Show) before returning to the guest-star circuit.
In 1985, Betty White joined the cast of TV's #1 rated comedy for that year and the next,
The Golden Girls as middle-aged grief counselor Rose Nyland opposite Bea Arthur, Estelle
Getty and Rue Mclanahan.
The Golden Girls sitcom lasted seven seasons before metamorphosing into the
less successful Golden Palace (1992). White was a regular on the 1995 series
Maybe This Time, and in 1997 she won an Emmy for her one-shot appearance
on The John Laroquette Show. Though she has starred and co-starred in several
made-for-TV movies, Betty White had appeared on the big screen only once,
as a Margaret Chase Smith-like senator in Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962)
In 2011, Betty White made a standing ovation sensation, hosting stint on NBC's long in tooth
Saturday Night Live, reviving the show's sagging ratings. White also
is featured on TV Land's Hot In Cleveland, outshining the lackluster cast and
less than stellar writing to the point of winning an Emmy for the cable network's
series venture.
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