Happy birthday, Betty White! As the acting legend celebrates turning 95 on Tuesday, January 17, Us Weekly Video is looking back at seven of her best onscreen moments. Watch the video above!
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, White moved to Los Angeles with her family during the Great Depression and after graduating from Beverly Hills High School, she decided to try her luck as an actress.
White started out in radio and modeling and made her TV debut in 1939. By 1952, she was starring in her own sitcom, Life With Elizabeth, which she also produced — making her one of the first female producers in Hollywood.
In the 1970s, she played the man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler-Moore Show, winning two Emmys for playing “The Happy Homemaker.”
In 1985 White scored the part of Rose Nyland in The Golden Girls. The St. Olaf, Minnesota, native is probably the best known of all of White’s roles, although she was originally offered the role of Blanche in the sitcom because it was close to the character she’d played on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. (Rue McClanahan went on to play the sex-crazed Southern belle.)
The animal activist also appeared on the big screen, most memorably playing Ryan Reynolds‘ grandma Annie in 2009’s The Proposal. White’s costar Sandra Bullock presented her with the Screen Actor’s Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in January 2010. In a speech full of zingers, the comedy veteran joked about Bullock being “plain” and hinted that she’d slept with a number of people in the audience.
Also in 2010, White took on the role of Elka Oscrovsky in TV Land’s scripted comedy Hot in Cleveland, alongside Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick. White scoring another Emmy nomination in 2011.
She memorably appeared in a 2010 Snickers Super Bowl ad and later that year hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time, after fans campaigned heavily for her to host the late-night comedy show.
“When I first heard about the campaign to get me to host Saturday Night Live, I didn’t know what Facebook was,” White joked in her opening monologue in May 2010. “And now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time.”
