Farewell to Betty White

2021, what a terrible year.  It couldn't even go out quietly without taking one more of our greats.

Mid afternoon on New Years Eve, spouse and I went for a walk.  I checked social media on my return and saw the news:  Betty White died in her sleep at the age of 99.  My heart broke. 

Betty White was just 18 days away from her 100th birthday.  Just a couple of days before her death, she appeared on the cover of the latest issue of People magazine.

Stunned fans and people who had worked with her deluged social media with tributes.

I've blogged several times about Betty White; here is one of those posts.

Betty White was a fixture of my childhood, appearing on many game shows.  She ended up marrying the host of one of those shows, Allen Ludden of Password.  By all accounts, it was a happy marriage.

Here is Betty White and Allen Ludden on a What's My Line from 1965.  The segments starts around 18:25.

During her 18 year marriage to Ludden (who died from cancer in 1981), White appeared on the Mary Tyler Moore show, one of the most popular TV programs of the 1970's. Her character, Sue Ann Nivens, was sweet as sugar on the surface but it was an act.  The real Sue Ann was man-hungry, and was sarcastically delicious.

Many also remember her fondly from two other TV show, The Golden Girls and Hot in Cleveland, but she actually started her TV career with an appearance in the young media in 1939.

Betty White never missed an opportunity to be, shall we say, hysterically inappropriate, as she is in one of my favorite all time Saturday Night Live skits.  Let the double entendres fly!

Not just the American public loved her; she was loved all over the world.

I''ll miss her.  I think many of us will.  Betty, thank you for the laughs.