In the spirit of 2021, the actor, animal rights activist and legend Betty White died just weeks shy of her 100th birthday. During her career, which spanned seven decades, White broke boundaries, won fans from every generation, and scored eight Emmy Awards.
Taking Lucille Ball’s lead, after roles in films, TV, and radio and having won her first Emmy, White became one of the first women in the 1950s to produce TV before becoming the first woman to host a game show.
Several successful TV shows and awards followed, but it is probably her role as the naive Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls, which ran from 1985 to 1992, for which White is most fondly remembered. A show about four single women living together in Miami, widows Rose and Blanche along with divorcee Dorothy and her octogenarian mother Sofia. Despite playing ‘the dumb blonde’, White gave Rose a certain steel and her ‘back in St Olaf’ stories often packed more of a punch than her room mates anticipated.
When The Golden Girls ended White showed no signs of slowing down, instead she took on roles in shows such as Boston Legal, Hot in Cleveland and made her soap opera debut in The Bold and the Beautiful. After a Facebook campaign in 2010 White hosted Saturday Night Live and was a hit.
Betty White will remain a comedy pioneer for funny women across the world.