{"id":10256,"date":"2021-12-07T16:19:07","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T16:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=10256"},"modified":"2022-02-02T16:30:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T16:30:59","slug":"betty-white-on-her-tv-shows-love-of-animals-and-a-good-pun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=10256","title":{"rendered":"Betty White on her TV shows, love of animals and a good pun"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013\u00a0Betty White loves a good pun. At least, she did when I had lunch with her when she was on \u2018The Golden Girls\u2019 in the mid-Eighties. This was her favourite at the time:\u00a0Why are protestors always allowed a way out in north-east Spain? Because you should never put all your Basques in one exit.<\/i><\/p>\n

This comes to mind as today will see publication of a book by my friend Ray Richmond about the venerable multi-award-winning actress, whose 100th birthday will be on January 17.<\/p>\n

Puns were not her greatest love. \u2018Animals are my life\u2019s work, TV is my hobby,\u2019 she told me. She was president emerita of the Colorado-based Morris Animal Foundation, which raises funds for medicine and vaccinations for dogs, cats, horses and wildlife.\u00a0Despite all of her success, her favourite series was \u2018Pet Set\u2019, which ran in syndication for 31 episodes in 1971. \u2018I was working in an element I loved,\u2019 she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Golden Girls\u2019 was already her most consistent hit when we spoke and it would run for seven years. \u2018We\u2019re having such fun,\u2019 she said. \u2018We\u2019re having a ball.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The show came five years after her time as snippy, judgmental Sue Ann Nivens in \u2018The Mary Tyler Moore Show\u2019 and she was first approached for the role of Blanche, the saucy Southern belle played by Rue McClanahan. Instead, she played the sweet and gullible Rose.<\/p>\n

\u2018I loved Sue Ann, rotten as she was,\u2019 White said. \u2018They were having trouble finding Rose. She is a far cry from Sue Anne but she\u2019s great fun to play.’ \u00a0White had worked with McClanahan on Vicki Lawrence\u2019s sitcom \u2018Mama\u2019s Family\u2019 and she was good friends with Bea Arthur, who played Dorothy on \u2018Golden Girls\u2019 with Estelle Getty as her cranky mother.<\/p>\n

\u2018None of us knew Estelle but she was like finding gold,\u2019 White said.\u00a0\u2018Going to work with pros \u2013 it would be great if it were just the professionalism but to have the whipped cream of them being so adorable. Whatever you throw out, they always come back.\u2019<\/p>\n

The wide\u00a0demographic appeal of the show came as a surprise. \u2018It\u2019s one thing to appeal to other women of a certain age but we have kids and young girls. The beauty of all of us coming with established careers \u2013 it\u2019s just delightful to make the point that when you meet that certain age there\u2019s still so much life. It\u2019s only the outside facade because inside you don\u2019t feel a whit different from when you\u2019re 21.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013\u00a0Betty White loves a good pun. At least, she did when I had lunch with her when she was on \u2018The Golden Girls\u2019 in the mid-Eighties. This was her favourite at the time:\u00a0Why are protestors always … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1263,2257,15],"tags":[5155,5137,5156,5154,5158,5159,5157],"class_list":["post-10256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-recalling","category-television","tag-the-golden-girls","tag-the-mary-tyler-moore-show","tag-bea-arthur","tag-betty-white","tag-estelle-getty","tag-ray-richmond","tag-rue-mcclanahan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10256"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10278,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256\/revisions\/10278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}