Saturday, May 08, 2010

Betty White nervous about stint on Saturday Night Live

TV legend Betty White is truly beloved by generations of fans and tonight she hosts Saturday Night Live. I expect the ratings for this episode to go through the roof. Bill Brioux has a good article about her. Below is an excerpt.

Bill Brioux writes:
At 88, Betty White is about to become the oldest host of the NBC comedy showcase, after a Facebook campaign tapped into her amazing cross generational appeal.

And while she says she’s “scared to death” to do the show, it’s not because it’s live, a twist that rattles most of today’s TV performers.

White, as she herself points out, was doing live television back when all there was was live television.

She started out in radio and got her first TV exposure on the West Coast in 1949.

“I was on five-and-a-half hours a day, six days a week for four years when I started my career in Los Angeles, so I love live television.”

She says that TV trial by fire was “like going to television college. It was a good experience.”

White, of course, is best known from her roles on two TV classics.

She played TV homemaker Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and dim-witted but lovable Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls.

She was also a familiar face for decades on dozens of afternoon game shows, including Match Game, Hollywood Squares and Password.

She met her late husband, Alan Ludden, on Password.

A true TV pioneer, by the early ‘50s she was already starring in her own series, Life with Elizabeth (for which she won her first of six Emmy Awards in 1952).

She went on to become the first female host of a daily network talk show and make countless appearances opposite Tonight Show hosts Jack Paar and Johnny Carson.

Part of White’s appeal today is that she continues to work.

As David Letterman said on his show this week, she’s like the weather this spring, “sunny and in the 80s.” READ MORE
MORE Betty White
  • OMFG! Have you guys seen this Betty White poster?
  • Betty White amazed by 'SNL' Facebook campaign
  • Maybe this whole crusade to have Betty White host SNL isn’t such a good idea after all