‘Hot in Cleveland’ signs off with series finale

When “Hot in Cleveland” began, Betty White was supposed to be only a guest star, but it didn’t work out that way.

The indefatigable seven-time Emmy winner—who recently added a Daytime Emmy for lifetime achievement— became one of the continuous calling cards of the TV Land comedy, which ends its six-season run with an hourlong finale Wednesday, June 3. White’s saucy Elka has her swan song with the Los Angeles transplants whose Ohio house she’s tended to, Melanie, Victoria and Joy (Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick, Jane Leeves).

“Oh, it was a very emotional, loving farewell,” White says of filming the last episode, which deals largely with Joy’s wedding plans and related complications. “We all got carried away, but to end a six-year series with everybody still adoring each other so much is a privilege.”

White is amused that her “Cleveland” stint ended up lasting that long, following her earlier runs on the classics “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Golden Girls.” She recalls, “I said, ‘I’ll do the pilot, but if the pilot gets picked up’—and how few pilots get picked up, so we weren’t worried about that—‘I can’t do it.’ Because of the schedule, I couldn’t attach myself to it. And now, years later ... .”

TV Land’s first original scripted series, “Hot in Cleveland” abided by the network’s founding credo of being a haven for familiar television faces, with numerous guest stars from White‘s former series comrades Moore and Edward Asner to Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart. The show also offered a couple of live episodes and incorporated animated segments into one story.

“I still think we had a few more years left in us, but it wasn’t meant to be, unfortunately,” Bertinelli says of the sitcom that has counted Sean Hayes (“Will & Grace”) among its executive producers. “They wrote such a beautiful ending, I don’t think anybody will be disappointed. It’s crazy and wacky, like we can be, but then it ends with such a really sweet heart. The great thing about our show is that we had a lot of love in there, and you’ll see that.”

Bertinelli also will be seeing her “Cleveland” cronies again, since she reports they made off-camera reunion plans before they left the show’s set. “There are not as many roles of women of our age out there,” notes the “One Day at a Time” alum. “There just aren’t, and it’s a shame, because I think we’re all still very funny and we have a lot to say. I think there’s room for everybody.”