Betty White Biography
Born: January 17, 1922
Actress Betty White got her start in local Los Angeles television as the "telephone girl" for video emcee Al Jarvis. By early 1950 she was one of the stars of the daily, five-hour series Hollywood on Television. One of the highlights of this program was a husband and wife sketch titled "Life With Elizabeth," which when committed to film and syndicated nationally in 1953 became White's first starring TV sitcom. She went on to headline her own network variety series in 1954, then co-starred with Bill Williams in the weekly TV domestic comedy Date With the Angels (1957), which without Williams was retitled The_Betty_White_Show in early 1958. For the next 15 years she made guest appearances on various variety and quiz show efforts, and toured the straw-hat theatrical circuit in such plays as +Critics Choice and +Who Was That Lady, often appearing opposite her husband, TV personality Allen Ludden. Two years after hosting the 1971 syndicated informational series The_Pet_Set, she guest-starred as libidinous "Happy Homemaker" Sue Ann Nivens on the fourth season opener of The_Mary_Tyler_Moore_Show. This Emmy-winning episode led to White being cast as an MTM regular; she remained with the series until its final episode in 1977. She then starred on her own short-lived sitcom (again titled The_Betty_White_Show) before returning to the guest-star circuit. In 1985, she joined the cast of TV's The Golden Girls as middle-aged grief counselor Rose Nyland. This top-rated program lasted seven seasons before metamorphosing into the rather less successful Golden_Palace (1992). White was a regular on the 1995 series Maybe_This_Time, and in 1997 she won an Emmy for her one-shot appearance on The_John_Laroquette_Show. Though she has starred and co-starred in several made-for-TV movies, Betty White had appeared on the big screen only once, as a Margaret Chase Smith-like senator in Otto_Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962). Hal Erickson, Rovi
Browse More Actresses:
