Update: Betty White has died days before her 100th birthday on Jan. 17, 2022. This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates on NYPost.com. The following is a tribute to her greatest career moments.
Sure, Mary Tyler Moore turned the world on with her smile — but her scene-stealing co-star, the legendary Betty White, is the one who stole our hearts for the long haul.
America’s badass sweetheart, a cultural touchstone who’s entertained generations with her wit and wisdom, is 99 years old Sunday.
Betty has a warning for COVID-19: “Since I am turning 99, I can stay up as late as I want without asking permission!”
After all, the Illinois-born, Cali-raised teen broke into showbiz three months after graduating from Beverly Hills High in 1939, when she was in an early “experimental” TV show, according to the Television Academy Archive.
Ever since — from pioneering work in the 1950s (she was the first woman to produce a sitcom!) to her ’70s breakthough as nymphomaniacal Sue Ann Nivens on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” to innocent ’80s lady Rose Nylund on “The Golden Girls” — Betty has always been a sure bet.
We know the truth — but does she realize she’s a legit pop culture icon?
“My egomaniacal answer is — of course, I’m the center of the storm!,” White once told The Post with a chuckle. “That’s a joke. I’m just grateful to be working, and that starts at the beginning. When you start out, you’re so grateful to have a job … and you carry that feeling through your whole career. At least I have.”
Considering that Jan. 17 marks beloved Betty’s b-day, we decided to throw her a socially distant party. In honor of this momentous occasion, we’re taking a look back at some of the best bon mots from this unabashed vodka lover’s more than 80 years in entertainment.
First up, check out the “First Lady of Television” revealing never-before-heard details about her first professional acting gig: One line in a trailblazing TV production of “The Merry Widow” — for which she was paid a whopping 37 bucks in 1939.
“When we started in television, there was that magic box in the corner of the room, and, ‘Oh, my gosh — look what it’s doing!,’ ” she said.
However, White wouldn’t make her leading-lady debut until a dozen years later, in the groundbreaking-for-its-time “Life With Elizabeth,” which ran for 65 episodes from 1952 to 1955.
White is characteristically modest — and a little bit sassy — in her assessment of being the first female to produce at TV sitcom.
“Getting it on the air back in those days wasn’t as competitive … They were sort of hungry for programming,” she told The Post in 2018. “I think I was moving on to something else, so I’m not sure if [the show] could have continued, but it was a wonderful stepping stone.”
A selection of Betty’s best bites on a variety of topics
On aging & COVID-19
- On surviving the COVID-19 pandemic: “I’m blessed with incredibly good health.” Also, White’s rep assured the public, “No one [is] permitted in [her home] except those who must” be there, noting she has “helpers who are great.” The rep added, “The virus is afraid of Betty!”
- “You probably didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway. What am I doing for my birthday? Running a mile each morning has been curtailed by COVID, so I am working on getting ‘The Pet Set’ re-released, and feeding the two ducks who come to visit me every day.”
- “The bottom line is … I don’t go around thinking, ‘Oh, I’m 90, I better do this or I better do that.’ I’m just Betty. I’m the same Betty that I’ve always been. Take it or leave it.”
- Her secret to a long, happy and healthy life is the aforementioned vodka — and hot dogs, “probably in that order.”
- “Retirement is not in my vocabulary. They aren’t going to get rid of me that way.”
- Finally, “don’t take yourself too seriously,” she advised just days before her big B-day. “You can lie to others — not that I would — but you cannot lie to yourself … Turning 99 is no different than turning 98.”
On social media
- Well, it’s for “losers,” as she told “Saturday Night Live” viewers when they waged a massive social media campaign to nab her a 2013 hosting slot on NBC’s iconic sketch comedy series with musical guest Jay-Z. Missed it? Revisit her classic — i.e. more than 5 million viral video views — “census taker meets crotch massager” skit.
BTW: Betty hasn’t tweeted since her September 2020 rally cry in support of Smokey Bear’s US Forest Service wildfire prevention campaign — but she still boasts a whopping 1.4 million loyal followers on Twitter.
On her love of animals
- “Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.”
- “I’m not into animal rights — I’m only into animal welfare and health. I’ve been with the Morris Animal Foundation since the ’70s. We’re a health organization. We fund campaign health studies for dogs, cats, lizards and wildlife. I’ve worked with the LA Zoo for about the same length of time.”
- “If everyone took personal responsibility for their animals, we wouldn’t have a lot of the animal problems that we do. I’m a big spay-and-neuter supporter. Don’t have babies if you’re not going to take care of those babies. We don’t need more. We just need to take care of the ones we have. Take responsibility and breathe kindness.”
- “I’m not a big cook. I only go in the kitchen to feed my dog,” said the animal activist, who has also long publicly supported the Wildlife Learning Center, Actors and Others for Animals and Monterey Bay Aquarium.
On sexual preferences
- “I don’t care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time — and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones — I think it’s fine if they want to get married. I don’t know how people can get so anti-something.”
- “I just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It’s that simple.”
- “Well, I mean, if a joke or humor is bawdy, it’s got to be funny enough to warrant it. You can’t just have it bawdy or dirty just for the sake of being that — it’s got to be funny.”
- “Animal lover that I am, a cougar I am not.”
On gratitude
- “I was flipping through channels the other night and came across something,” she told The Post. “I don’t know what show it was, but they had a TV on in the scene and I was on that TV! I’m just grateful that people have put up with me for so long.”
- “I’m the luckiest broad on two feet, I’ll tell you that. They say once a woman passes 40 she doesn’t get any good parts, so I’m blessed.”
- “I cannot stand the people who get wonderful starts in show business and who abuse it. Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen, for example, although there are plenty of others, too. They are the most blessed people in the world, and they don’t appreciate it.”
- “I have no regrets at all. None.”
With Post wires