TURNING 99, TRULY GOLDEN
Comic Betty White started her TV career in 1939
It’s Betty White’s 99th birthday on Sunday, and the momentous milestone should surprise no one.
A national treasure known for her roles on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Golden Girls” and “Hot in Cleveland,” White has been politely pushing and exceeding barriers since before there was a polio vaccine.
When NBC gave her a 30-minute variety show in 1954, she negotiated creative control, hired a female director and refused to back down when Southern stations demanded she stop featuring Black tap dancer and singer Arthur Duncan.
“Some people down South said that if she kept me on the show, they were going to cancel it,” Duncan, 87, told the Daily News in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home Thursday.
“Her response was, ‘Needless to say, we’ll be having Arthur on every opportunity we get.’ And it was just a joy. She told the people who felt that way to go fly a kite,” Duncan said.
“She was the first person to give me a job. She was always there for support. People like that come along once in a lifetime,” he said.
“She was never in a bad mood. Never. She’d find some good in even the worst situation, the worst person.”
White defied barriers again in her mid 80s when she ruthlessly roasted William Shatner on Comedy Central, starred in a Snickers commercial that went viral globally and became the oldest person ever to host “Saturday Night Live,” a gig that led to her seventh Emmy Award.
Her incredible pop culture comeback won her a cast-member role on the hit TV Land sitcom “Hot in Cleveland,” where she played a sassy 88-year-old property caretaker opposite co-stars Valerie
Bertinelli, Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves.
“She’s been one of the greatest mentors of my life,” Malick told The News on Thursday.
“We started ‘Hot in Cleveland’ when Valerie and Jane were on the verge of 50, I was on the verge of 60 and Betty was almost 90. She was having such a great renaissance — even though she never stopped — and I just looked at her and thought, ‘She’s beginning an amazing third act,’ ” Malick said.
“It was just the most wonderful thing. In a world where we’re not always celebrated for maturing, she was proof how rich a life you can have when you keep your sense of humor and remain kind,” she said.
“When we were first doing the show, I remember someone came up to her and said, ‘You know what I hate?’ And she said, ‘No, and I don’t’ care.’ ” Malick said with a laugh. “It wasn’t that she put her head in the sand. She just preferred to see her glass as half full.”
Fellow “Hot in Cleveland” star Jane Leeves said “it’s a privilege to know and love” White.
“There should be a picture of Betty White next to the word woke in the urban dictionary,” Leeves said in a statement to The News.
“Apart from her astonishing talent as a performer, she inspires us with her open mindedness, positive outlook, warmth and hunger for knowledge,” Leeves said.
“Surely that’s the secret to her youthfulness, longevity and sparkle. Yes, she sparkles! I certainly think so.”
Duncan, meanwhile, called White a true friend who’s stayed in touch over the decades.
He said she sent him a huge box of animal-shaped cookies when he performed in Palm Desert, Calif., a few years ago and surprised him on the set of Steve Harvey’s “Little Big Shots: Forever Young” in 2017.
“She’s such a gracious lady,” he said.