Updated December 31, 2021 6.6K votes 1.2K voters 53.3K views
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Vote up the Betty White stories that made you love her.
Betty White was the coolest. She was the sweetest. She was everything you could ever want in a grandmother even though, surprisingly enough, she was not actually a grandmother at all. Would she simply settle for giving you hard candies from her purse? No! She would give you the time of your life! But there's way more to her than just being a cutie and a half. White was a Guinness World Record holder, a figure in entertainment history for longer than sliced bread's been invented (literally), and did some cool sh*t during World War II.
The list of Betty White trivia goes on. She was on some of television's most iconic sitcoms. She made waves in the industry when it wasn't exactly easy for women to do so. Multi-talented and beyond charming, she was doing it all, well into her 90s. Wade into this list of things you never knew about Betty White, vote up the most endearing traits, and bask in the light was Betty White.
Back in 1952, Betty White founded Bandy Productions, making her one of the first female Hollywood producers at a time when that was basically unheard of. White managed to lock down control in front of and behind the camera at a time when women were shoehorned into kitchens and housewife-dom. With Bandy Productions, White starred in her own sitcom Life with Elizabeth and started her own day time talk show, The Betty White Show.
Betty White was in the entertainment industry for a really long time. And the industry is all the better for it, obviously. But here's just how long was been working – White worked so long that she was the Guinness World Record title holder for having the longest television career as an entertainer at the time of her passing in 2021.
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She Was The Oldest Person To Have Been Nominated For An Emmy
White was awarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmys in 2015. And what a lifetime! White was 93 at the time she accepted the award, making her the oldest Emmy recipient. During her exceptionally sweet speech, White said "Oh my goodness! I cannot tell you what this means," before turning to her Emmy and saying, "hello, beautiful."
White's love for animals is definitely on par with her love of being an entertainer, so much so that, before she wanted to become an actress, she wanted to be a zoo keeper or a forest ranger. She told Smithsonian about her former dream and how it's sort of come true for her recently:
"Right. A couple of years ago, the Forest Service made me an honorary forest ranger. Back when I started, girls couldn’t be forest rangers. But now they made me an honorary one, made it very official, and I was deeply honored. As far as a zookeeper, I have been such a zoo nut all my life that I am practically a zookeeper!"
2010 marked the year that Betty White secured the title of oldest Saturday Night Live host. At the time, White was 88 and managed to lock down the host slot because of a Facebook campaign that had a veritable stampede of fans, amounting to over 100,000, clamoring for her to host the show. Obviously she slayed.
During World War II, White took some time out of her career in the entertainment industry to join the American Women's Voluntary Services. She drove a PX truck full of supplies to the Hollywood Hills during her service. She described the experience to Cleveland magazine as follows:
"It was a strange time and out of balance with everything […] which I'm sure the young people are going through now. We'll never learn. We'll never learn."
