TV Icon Betty White Passes Away at 99

The world has lost one of its most enduring and iconic TV performers, as Betty White has passed away. People Magazine reports that White, best known for her role on Golden Girls among a myriad of memorable performances, passed away as confirmed by her agent and close friend Jeff Witjas. She was 99 years old, just 17 days from her 100th birthday. TMZ reports that she is believed to have died of natural causes.

“Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever,” her agent and close friend Witjas said in a statement. “I will miss her terribly and so will the animal world that she loved so much. I don’t think Betty ever feared passing because she always wanted to be with her most beloved husband Allen Ludden. She believed she would be with him again.”

White had a career that spanned 90 years, starting when she appeared on the radio program Empire Builders in 1930 at the age of eight. Born in January of 1922 in Oak Park, Illinois, her family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, and she became truly interested in becoming a performer during high school. She landed her first on-screen gig in 1939, just three months after she graduated high school, on the experimental TV show The Merry Widow. That would kick off a career that included well over 100 acting credits, five Primetime Emmy Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards, and 23 nominations between the two.

Of course, her best known role was that of Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls. The sitcom about four older women sharing a home in Miami was a stable of television in the 1980s and early 1990s, and it elevated White from a star to an icon. White won a Best Actress in a Comedy Emmy for the role in 1986 and was nominated six other times. She was originally offered the role of Blanche, who was ultimately played by the late Rue McClanahan. Rose was a widow, and for that White drew on the inspiration provided by the passing of her third and last husband, actor Allen Ludden who had passed of stomach cancer in 1981.

Golden Girls was not, however, her first award-winning performance by a longshot. Her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination came in 1951 at the 3rd Emmy Awards, the final show that was primarily focused on Los Angeles-based TV productions before the awards went national. White was nominated for Best Actress, the first year that acting awards were given out at the ceremony.

White also earned three nominations for Best Supporting Actress from 1975 through 1977 for her role as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and would go on to be nominated throughout her career for guest appearances on various series multiple times.

White worked regularly throughout her career and had three shows named The Betty White Show: a daytime talk show in 1954, a primetime comedy variety show in 1958, and a sitcom where she played middle-aged actress Joyce Whitman in 1977.

Following Golden Girls, White starred in several shows including the short-lived spinoff The Golden Palace and would guest on a multitude of shows including Ally McBeal, King of the Hill, That ‘70s Show and more. A guest spot on The Practice turned into a regular role on Boston Legal where she played Catherine Piper, and she had a run on soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful from 2006 through 2009. She also played Elka Ostrovsky in Hot in Cleveland, from 2010 to 2015 a role that helped solidify her return to the spotlight as THE elder stateswoman of television.

In addition to her truly legendary TV career, she starred in several films, often in voice work. Her most memorable role for many on the big screen was that of Delores Bickerman, the foul-mouthed senior in Lake Placid. She also co-starred in 2009’s The Proposal, which along with Hot In Cleveland contributed to her return to the spotlight. She did voice work for the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo as well as The Wild Thornberries: The Origin of Donnie, The Lorax and Toy Story 4.

Outside of her film work, White was also an activist who advocated for animal welfare causes and worked heavily with the Los Angeles Zoo Commission, The Morris Animal Foundation, African Wildlife Foundation, and Actors & Others for Animals. She was made an honorary forest ranger by the USDA Forest Service in 2010, fulfilling a lifelong dream of hers as she had originally wanted to become a ranger before she got into acting. She was also an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ causes.

On behalf of 411, our condolences to family, friends, and the worldwide legion of fans of Betty White. Television and pop culture as a whole would be a very different and worse place without her.