Betty Marion White was born on Jan. 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois, and was the only child of Christine Tess and Horace Logan White. Her family moved to California when Betty was just a year old. She initially wanted to be a forest ranger but in the 1940s, women weren’t permitted to be in that field. (She was later made an honorary forest ranger by the U.S. Forest Service.) White found her passion for performing during high school in Los Angeles. “I was in the graduation play…and the president of our senior class and I sang ‘The Merry Widow’ and did a little dance,” White told NPR. “I think that’s when the show biz bug bit me and they haven’t been able to get rid of me since.” After graduating, she found work modeling. By 1949, the young actress was in the new talk show, Hollywood on Television with Eddie Albert. She was on the live broadcast for 5 1/2 hours a day, six days a week. Within a few years, White co-founded her own production company and was not only a TV pioneer, she was one of the first producers in Hollywood. When she launched her television show, Life With Elizabeth, White became the rare woman who had creative control both behind and in front of the camera—acting, producing and writing the sitcom. And she won an Emmy for her work. A lot has changed in Hollywood, and the world, in the decades since she first dipped into show business, but one thing’s for sure: Betty White is as funny as ever! When interviewed for her Parade cover story in 2018, White revealed her secret to a long, happy and healthful life: “Enjoy life,” she said. “Accentuate the positive, not the negative. It sounds so trite, but a lot of people will pick out something to complain about, rather than say, ‘Hey, that was great!’ It’s not hard to find great stuff if you look.” She also said she loved vodka and hot dogs, “probably in that order.” On Jan. 17, 2021, when she turned 99, she told ET how she would be celebrating this milestone birthday: “Running a mile each morning has been curtailed by COVID, so I am working on getting [the 1970s television show] The Pet Set re-released, and feeding the two ducks who come to visit me every day.” With seven Emmy Awards, four different television shows called The Betty White Show, countless other series, and many, many decades later, White remains a force. “A lot of people really find Betty White inspiring. She has been working as an actor for more than six decades in a business that doesn’t exactly value getting older,” said Sandra Bullock when presenting White with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. “Betty you make me feel like a slacker.” We’re taking a look back at photos of Betty White through the years, from her early days as a young actress on KLAC-TV to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Golden Girls and beyond.
