Betty Marion White Ludden was an American actress and comedian. A pioneer of early television, with a career spanning seven decades, White was noted for her vast work in the entertainment industry. She was among the first women to exert control in front of and behind the camera and the first woman to produce a sitcom (Life with Elizabeth), which contributed to her being named honorary Mayor of Hollywood in 1955. White is often referred to as the “First Lady of Television”, a title used for a 2018 documentary detailing her life and career.

After making the transition to television from radio, White became a staple panelist of American game shows, including Password, Match Game, Tattletales, To Tell the Truth, The Hollywood Squares, and The $25,000 Pyramid; dubbed “the first lady of game shows”, White became the first woman to receive the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host for the show Just Men! in 1983. She was also known for her appearances on The Bold and the Beautiful, Boston Legal, and The Carol Burnett Show.

Her biggest roles include Sue Ann Nivens on the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973–1977), Rose Nylund on the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–1992), and Elka Ostrovsky on the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland (2010–2015). She gained renewed popularity after her appearance in the 2009 romantic comedy film The Proposal (2009), and was subsequently the subject of a successful Facebook-based campaign to host Saturday Night Live in 2010, garnering her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

White worked longer in television than anyone else in that medium, earning her a Guinness World Record in 2018. White received eight Emmy Awards in various categories, three American Comedy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was a 1995 Television Hall of Fame inductee.

Some of the quotes from Betty White are listed below.

“Animals are near and dear to my heart, and I’ve devoted my life to trying to improve their lives.” – Betty White
“Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.” – Betty White
“Butterflies are like woman – we may look pretty and delicate, but baby, we can fly through a hurricane.” – Betty White
“Doing drama is, in a sense, easier. In doing comedy, if you don’t get that laugh, there’s something wrong.” – Betty White
“Don’t try to be young. Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won’t live long enough to find out about, but I’m still curious about them.” – Betty White
“During the Depression, my dad made radios to sell to make extra money. Nobody had any money to buy the radios, so he would trade them for dogs. He built kennels in the backyard, and he cared for the dogs.” – Betty White
“Facebook just sounds like a drag, in my day seeing pictures of peoples vacations was considered a punishment.” – Betty White
“Friendship takes time and energy if it’s going to work. You can luck into something great, but it doesn’t last if you don’t give it proper appreciation.” – Betty White
“Get at least eight hours of beauty sleep. Nine if you’re ugly.” – Betty White
“Gravity has taken over. So, there’s not much I can do about it… My problem with plastic surgery is you’ll go to a women’s press conference or something like that, and old friends will come up and I kind of don’t recognize them.” – Betty White
“I always wanted to be a zookeeper when I was growing up, and I’ve wound up a zookeeper! … my life is divided absolutely in half – half animals and half show business. You can’t ask for better than two things you love the most.” – Betty White
“I am interested in a lot of things – not just show business and my passion for animals. I try to keep current in what’s going on in the world.” – Betty White
“I didn’t choose to have children because I’m focused on my career. And I just don’t think, as compulsive as I am, that I could manage both.” – Betty White
“I do mental exercises. I don’t have any trouble memorizing lines because of the crossword puzzles I do every day to keep my mind a little limber.” – Betty White
“I don’t know how people can get so anti-something. Mind your own business, take care of your affairs, and don’t worry about other people so much.” – Betty White
“I go out to the kitchen to feed the dog, but that’s about as much cooking as I do.” – Betty White
“I had no idea that I would still be around at this point for one thing, but that I’d still be privileged enough to still be in this business.” – Betty White
“I have a two-story house and a bad memory, so I’m up and down those stairs all the time. That’s my exercise.” – Betty White
“I have my golden retriever now, Pontiac. He’s a career-change guide dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind.” – Betty White
“I have no regrets at all. None. I consider myself to be the luckiest broad on two feet.” – Betty White
“I have the backbone of an eel.” – Betty White
“I just care what kind of a decent human being you are.” – Betty White
“I just laugh. Have I got them fooled?” – Betty White
“I just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It’s that simple.” – Betty White
“I know unless I’m true to myself I couldn’t be happy. Too much emphasis is placed today on externals and too little on character.” – Betty White
“I love children, the only problem with children: they grow up to be people, and I just like animals better than people. It’s that simple.” – Betty White
“I think everybody needs a passion. Whether it’s one passion or a hundred, that’s what keeps life interesting.” – Betty White
“I’m a teenager trapped in an old body.” – Betty White
“I’m in the acting business. That’s the ego business. When you get offers, the way things are going now you’ve gotta enjoy it. You’ve gotta take to time to taste it, and appreciate it and make the most of it.” – Betty White
“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 … I’ve worked with the L.A. Zoo for about the same length of time. I get my animal fixes!” – Betty White
“I’m a health nut. My favorite food is hot dogs with French fries.” – Betty White
“I’ve always liked older men. They’re just more attractive to me. Of course, at my age there aren’t that many left!” – Betty White
“I’ve worked with the Morris Animal Foundation for over 50 years, I’ve worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for over 50 years… at one point, I said nobody was addressing pain in animals… I said, okay, I’ll start it.” – Betty White
“If everyone took personal responsibility for their animals, we wouldn’t have a lot of the animal problems that we do. Take responsibility and breed kindness.” – Betty White
“If one has no sense of humor, one is in trouble.” – Betty White
“If you get into a Broadway show and it doesn’t work, you’re a failure. And if it does work, you may be stuck for who knows how long. It just doesn’t sound great to me!” – Betty White
“If you’re walking with your lady on the sidewalk, I still like to see a man walking street-side, to protect the lady from traffic… I still like to see that a man opens the door. I like those touches of chivalry that are fast disappearing.” – Betty White
“It’s a little-known fact that one in three family pets gets lost during its lifetime, and approximately nine million pets enter shelters each year.” – Betty White
“It’s been phenomenal, but everybody keeps congratulating me on my resurgence and my big comeback. I haven’t been away, guys. I’ve been working steadily for the last 63 years.” – Betty White
“It’s fun once in a while to do a serious part but I really enjoy doing comedy because I love to laugh.” – Betty White
“It’s your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don’t take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.” – Betty White
“Keep the other person’s well-being in mind when you feel an attack of soul-purging truth coming on.” – Betty White
“One thing they don’t tell you about growing old – you don’t feel old, you just feel like yourself. And it’s true. I don’t feel eighty-nine years old. I simply am eighty-nine years old.” – Betty White
“People have told me ‘Betty, Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with old friends…’ At my age, if I wanted to keep in touch with old friends, I’d need a Ouija board.” – Betty White
“People who don’t like cats haven’t been around them. There’s the old joke: dogs have masters, cats have staff.” – Betty White
“Retirement is not in my vocabulary. They aren’t going to get rid of me that way.” – Betty White
“So I got over there early one morning and didn’t know I was going to be in the ice cold muddy water. This poor stunt woman took the dive, she went in I got the laugh. She’s probably sticking pins in a little Betty White doll.” – Betty White
“The audience today has heard every joke. They know every plot … It’s much more competitive now, because the audience is so much more – I want to say sophisticated.” – Betty White
“There’s no formula. Keep busy with your work and your life. Keep the person in your heart all the time. Replay the good times. Be grateful for the years you had.” – Betty White
“We didn’t have Facebook in my day, we had a phone book but you wouldn’t waste an afternoon on it.” – Betty White
“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.” – Betty White
“When I pontificate, it sounds so, you know, oh, well, she’s preaching. I’m not preaching, but I think maybe I learned it from my animal friends. Kindness and consideration of somebody besides yourself.” – Betty White
“Why retire from something if you’re loving it so much and enjoying it so much … What would I do with myself?” – Betty White
“You can always tell about somebody by the way they put their hands on an animal.” – Betty White
“You know people who are already saying, ‘I’m going to be 30 – oh, what am I going to do?’ Well, use that decade! Use them all!” – Betty White

Tags: Quotes