Happy Birthday, BETTY!
As Betty White prepares to celebrate her milestone 100th birthday, we celebrate the life of a true TV icon.
First you must go back to Oak Park, Ill., on Jan. 17, 1922. That’s when electrical engineer Horace White and his homemaker wife, Tess, welcomed their bouncing baby girl named Betty. Little did they realize their only child would grow up to be the hilarious First Lady of Television with an amazing decades-spanning career—and live to see her 100th birthday.
“She’s like the love child of Mister Rogers and the Energizer Bunny with a vintage chardonnay,” says Ray Richmond, author of the new book Betty White: 100 Remarkable Moments in an Extraordinary Life. White, of course, also happens to be beloved by the masses, thanks to the charming self-deprecating wit that she’s displayed in everything from 1960s game shows to Hot in Cleveland.
What will she be doing on her 100th birthday? “I’ll be ‘lunching’ with Robert Redford [her heartthrob] and then . . . I’ll spend it with as many animals as I can round up,” she tells Parade. “My pets have all passed on now and I haven’t taken in anyone new because at my age I don’t want to leave anyone behind. But I miss having a friend with a leg on each corner.” She attributes her long life and career to “good luck,” saying, “I don’t think I had anything to do with it!”
But we know better. Here’s a tribute to all things Betty in honor of her grand milestone.
A CENTURY OF LIVING
With her six Emmy Awards (five Primetime; one Daytime), a 1995 induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame and the SAG Life Achievement Award (2010), White is one of most popular, lauded and talented actresses in the history of Hollywood. But, says Richmond, “the fact that she’s made it to 100 makes her a true legend.” Check out White through her many ages and stages.
2 White and her parents move from suburban Illinois to Los Angeles. She’s said she always considers herself a California girl.
17 She graduates from Beverly Hills High School. Her classmates vote her “Best-Looking Female.”
27 She makes her TV series debut on Al Jarvis’ daily live variety show Hollywood on Television in 1949.
31 Two years after the premiere of I Love Lucy, White does her own version of the 1950s housewife in the sitcom Life With Elizabeth, co-starring with Del Moore and garnering her first Emmy nomination.
32 She hosts and produces her own daily variety show, The Betty White Show (1954).
41 She marries Password. TV host Allen Ludden in 1963. They were together until his death in 1981 of stomach cancer. Though they never had kids, she has three stepchildren from Ludden’s previous marriage.