Hollywood icon Betty White dies at 99 – National | Globalnews.ca

Actress, comedian and Hollywood icon Betty White has died at the age of 99.

White, who was set to turn 100 years old on Jan. 17, 2022, died in her home Friday morning, TMZ first reported.

Her death was confirmed by her longtime agent Jeff Witjas in a phone call Friday with publicist Pam Golum.

White, TV’s Golden Girl, was a pioneer of early television and had a career spanning over nine decades, working longer in that medium than anyone else in the television industry.

She was best known as Sue Ann Nivens on the 1970s sitcom Mary Tyler Moore, for which she won best supporting actress Emmys in 1975 and 1976, and for playing Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls in 1985, for which she won another Emmy in 1986.

White also had her own series, Life with Elizabeth, in 1952. She has been inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

White was born in Oak Park, Ill., in 1922. Her family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, where she attended Beverly Hills High School.

She started her entertainment career in radio in the late 1930s, and by 1939, she made her TV debut singing on an experimental channel in Los Angeles.

After serving in the American Women’s Voluntary Service during the Second World War, she was a regular on Hollywood on Television, a daily five-hour live variety show, in 1949.

Throughout the 1960s and early ’70s, White was a regular on TV, hosting coverage of the annual Tournament of Rose Parade and appearing on game shows like Match Game and Password. She married Allen Ludden, host of Password, in 1963.

White, who had no children, was also known for her work on animal causes. She once turned down a role in the movie As Good as It Gets because of a scene involving a dog being thrown in a garbage chute.

More to come.

— with files from Reuters and The Associated Press