The world was gifted the beloved Betty White beforesliced bread was even a thing.
And in a lifetime spanning almost 100 years, she spent arecord-breaking number of those on television.
But even so, the praise just kept coming.
“There’s a reason why there is only one Betty White,“Jamie Lee CurtistoldAARPin 2010.
When news broke that she’d died on December 31, 2021 (viaPeople), fans were distraught.
However, fans may not realize just how much White had been through over her nearly 100 years.
Let’s take a look at the stunning transformation of this incredible woman who will be sorely missed.
Speaking toParade, she remembered her parents' sense of humor fondly.
Can we keep him?'
My parents had a cat named Toby who liked to sit on my crib.
All those adoptedpetswould create a foundation upon which White would build her lifelong advocacy for animals.
And that love ran deep.
“We wound up with 26 dogs once,” White toldPeople.
“I think it was a territory or undiscovered land.”
“Her mother and my mother werebest friends,” she shared withThe Atlantic.
The show was called “Empire Builders,” and she playedthe role of an orphan.
“You don’t have to put your eyelashes on, and you read your lines.”
While she may have been dazzling the airwaves, she would set her sights on bigger things soon enough.
“I was always gonna be a writer.
I wrote the graduation play … at Horace Mann Grammar School in Beverly Hills.
And, of course, as any red-blooded American girl would do, I wrote myself into the lead.
And the showbiz bug bit me!”
“The Land of the Rising Sun,” a Japanese theater-style play she wrote.
Then, she ditched the writing thing almost before she started. "
I could hardly wait to graduate and foist myself on a panting public.”
She jumped at the chance.
We wore brown makeup and brown lipstick.
We were just dripping sweat.”
Who could have known that she was essentially embarking on what would become an acting career that spanned decades!
We’ll never learn.
We’ll never learn."
“Oh, it was a nightmare,” she remembered when speaking withPeople.
She was a tried and true California girl at heart.
She explained, “I married my first because we wanted to sleep together.
It lasted six months, and we were in bed for six months.”
Still, she added that it “helped me to appreciate the real thing when it came along.”
The couple divorced later that year.
This time with talent agent and former vet Lane Allen (viaCNN).
It was decidedlynotthe popular choice in the 1940s.
“Boy, you feel like you’ve really flunked the course.
I mean, it’s terrible, self-defeating …
It’s your failure; it’s not anybody else’s,” she said.
The show lasted five hours a day five days a week and had no script.
White and Jarvis would riff off each other, chat with guests, and crack a few jokes.
“Al was a great one to work with.
“It was like going to television college.
You don’t get that kind of experience today.”
And everything was shot live.
“Whatever happened, you had to handle it.
… Whoever came in that door was on, and you were interviewing them,” she toldNPR.
With that, she would create her own show.
She noted, “We had about $1.95 for a budget for each show.”
She caught the eye of dapper show host Allen Ludden.
“He was charming.
After an initial rejection, it took her a whole year to say yes.
She said this was her greatest regret (via"Where Are They Now?
“): wasting an entire yearnotsaying yes to the love of her life.
White and Ludden lived happily together with Ludden’s three children and White’s adopted dogs.
If you’ve had the best, who needs the rest?”
White was a lifelong proponent of animal welfare.
When asked how she got started in an interview with Katie Couric, sheanswered, “In the womb.
My mother and dad were the same way.”
This is my other home.”
She added, “They can’t get rid of me.”
She accepted the one-episode gig in 1973, and taped the show.
She delighted producers, and shortly after, became a recurring character until the series' end in 1977.
Twice in a row, Whitewon Emmysforher role on the show as Sue Ann Nivens.
She was special.”
She kicked it in Miami with The Golden Girls
Yeah, you know thetheme song.
“Rose isn’t slow-witted, she just marches to a different drum, that’s all.
“We are having so much fun, there should be a law against it.
… Off-camera, we adore each other.”
But White had originally been up for the role of Blanche.
While some may say it’s her greatest role, it sure wouldn’t be her last.
“I turned it down three times earlier in my career,” Betty White told"TimesTalks.”
I was scared, is what I was."
And she becamethe show’s oldest host.
But no, you would never have caught White wasting time scrolling through her friends' status updates.
Did she have a secret to maintaining her youthful charm?
“She eats crap,” former castmate Jane Leeves toldUs Weekly.
“Red Vines, hot dogs, French fries and Diet Coke.
If that’s key, maybe she’s preserved because of all the preservatives.”
She joked toPeoplein 2021, “I attempt to avoid anything green.”
White’s also gotten by on four hours of sleep for her entire life.
