12/31/2021- 2:34 p.m.
Legendary actress, producer, animal-rights activist and all-around sweetheart Betty White died Friday at the age of 99, TMZ reports.
The Oak Park, Ill., native — best known for playing mantrap Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973-77) and ditzy Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls (1985-92) — got her big break on the small screen in 1949, when she began co-hosting Al Jarvis’ live variety show, Hollywood on Television.
Just two years later, she was nominated for her first Primetime Emmy Award and co-founded her own production company, which, a year after that, created Life with Elizabeth, a syndicated comedy showcasing one of her Hollywood on Television characters.
Among her other accolades are a Lifetime Achievement Award (presented at the 2015 Daytime Emmys), a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (right next to Ludden’s) and inclusion (as of 2014) in the Guinness World Records book as the record-holder for Longest TV Career for an Entertainer (Female).
Throughout her life and career, White — who had no children (but was stepmother to Ludden’s three kids from his first marriage) — was a staunch animal-rights activist. Not only was she a sponsor of both the Farm Animal Reform Movement and Friends of Animals, but she wrote Betty White’s Pet-Love:
How Pets Take Care of Us, and donated all the proceeds from her clothing line and 2011 calendar to animal charities.
