| Betty White Net Worth: | $75 million |
| Born: | 17th January 1922 (died on 31st December 2021 aged 99) |
| Profession: | Actress and comedian |
| Nationality: | American |
| Children: | 0 |
According to celebritynetworth.com, the American actress, comedian, and TV host Betty White, had a net worth of $75 million upon her death in December 2021.
Early Life
Betty White was born on 17th January 1922 in Oak Park, Illinois. Unlike many people named Betty, White’s first name was not Elizabeth and Betty was her legal name.
White was the daughter (and only child) of Christine Tess (née Cachikis), who was a homemaker, and Horace Logan White who was from Michigan and worked as a lighting company executive.
In terms of heritage, Betty White’s maternal grandfather was Greek and her paternal grandfather was Danish. Both grandmothers were from Ontario, Canada.
When Betty was just over one year old, the family moved to California. Then, during the Great Depression, they moved to Los Angeles.
Education
White went to school in Beverly Hills, attending Horace Man Elementary School and then Beverly Hills High School where she graduated in 1939.
Initially, the teenager aspired to be a forest ranger due to her interest in wildlife. However, being female meant this wasn’t possible. Instead, Betty pursued a writing career. She wrote the play for her school graduation and discovered she liked performing. She was inspired by Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, her idols.
An Aspiring Actress
Betty decided to pursue acting and just one month after graduating from high school, she performed on a TV show which was experimental. TV was in the first stages of development at the time. On the show, she performed The Merry Widow songs with a classmate.
As well as acting, she modeled. Her first acting roles were at the Bliss Hayden Little Theater.
White’s Career During the War
As America entered WWII in 1941, Betty White volunteered with the American Women’s Voluntary Services. She drove a PX truck containing military supplies up to the Hollywood Hills. She also took part in events put of for troops before deployment.
Post War Career
After the war ended, White looked for work in movie studies but was declared unphotogenic. Instead, she sought work on the radio where looks didn’t matter.
White’s first radio roles were bit parts, reading commercials, and crowd noise.
After appearing on shows like The Great Gildersleeve, This is Your FBI, and Blondie, she was offered her own show on the radio called The Betty White Show.
TV Career
White’s first TV appearances were on Hollywood on Television where Betty would co-host with Al-Jarvis daily. This was a show that was originally names Make Believe Ballroom and was broadcast in Los Angeles on the then KLAC-TV, which is now called KCOP-TV.
After Jarvis left the show in 1952, Betty would host it on her own. During each broadcast, she would sing some songs. The show was entirely live (obvious for the time) and was on six days a week.
As if she wasn’t busy enough with Hollywood on Television, Betty White also co-founded Bandy Productions in 1952. She worked on this with Don Fedderson, a producer, and George Tibbles, a writer.
As a threesome, they worked together to build new shows from existing sketches that had appeared on Hollywood on Television. These included Life with Elizabeth, with Betty White portraying the main character.
As a live production, White won a Los Angeles Emmy Award for her role in 1952.
Becoming A National TV Star
The show Life with Elizabeth was syndicated nationally between 1953 and 1955, which meant that Betty White was one of the very few women who appeared both behind and in front of the camera.
During this time, the star also appeared in TV advertisements in LA.
Between 1952 and 1954, White also produced and hosted The Betty White Show, a daily variety show that first appeared on KLAC-TV and subsequently ran on NBC.
Date with the Angels
After the success of The Betty White Show, Betty White appeared as the character Vicki Angel on Date with the Angels on ABC. This was a sitcom that was loosely based on the play Dream Girl by Elmer Rice. This ended up being somewhat of a disaster in terms of ratings and critics.
Achievements in the 1960s and 70s
White was also a household name for being a gameshow host during the 1960s. She appeared on Password, Password Plus, Super Password, and Million Dollar Password as well as What’s My Line?, To tell the Truth, I’ve Got a Secret, Matchgame, and Pyramid.
White was also offered a job as an anchor on the Today breakfast television show on NBC but White didn’t want to move the New York City and so Barbara Walters took up the post.
The 1970s also saw Betty White appear as Sue Ann Nivens in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Working in the 1980s and 1990s
In the early 1980s, Betty White was the first female to win an Emmy for being an Outstanding Game Show Host, which she won for Just Men. This gave her the title of the “First Lady of Game Shows.”
In the early 1980s, Betty played Ellen Harper Jackson in Mama’s Family. This character originally appeared in some 1970s sketches on White’s The Carol Burnett Show.
The next of White’s signature roles (and the biggest role of her career) was in 1985 on The Golden Girls as Rose Nylund. This show ran for seven years and saw White win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series.
Once The Golden Girls ended in 1992, White reprised her role in the spin-off The Golden Palace though this only lasted one season.
2000s and Beyond
White took on many roles in the 2000s, these included roles in the soap The Bold and the Beautiful and in Boston Legal.
She also appeared on The Late Show with Craig Ferguson and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on several occasions.
White also appeared on the big screen in 2009 when she appeared alongside Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock in the romantic comedy The Proposal.
Family Life and Personal Life
Betty White met her first husband, Dick Barker when she was volunteering with the American Women’s Voluntary Services. Barker was a U.S. Army Air Force pilot.
The couple married after the war and moved to Barker’s chicken farm in Belle Center, Ohio. White, however, didn’t like this simple life and returned to Los Angeles and was divorced within a year.
White married a second time in 1947 to a Hollywood talent agent, Lane Allen. However, this marriage also ended in divorce two years later because White preferred having a career to having a family.
White got married to her third husband Allen Ludden, in 1963. She met him on Password when she appeared as a celebrity guest in 1961. She changed her name to Betty White Ludden. It’s common knowledge that Ludden had proposed to White twice before she finally accepted to marry him.
The couple had no children, but Allen had three children before meeting White. Ludden died in 1981 from stomach cancer, and White never remarried.
White’s Death
On Christmas Day 2021, White suffered a stroke. She died six days later, on 31st December 2021, at the age of 99.
Betty White Famous Quotes
“It’s your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don’t take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.” – Betty White
“Get at least 8 hours of beauty sleep. 9 if you’re ugly.” – Betty White
“I’m a teenager trapped in an old body” – Betty White
“I don’t know how people get so anti-something. Just mind your own business, take care of your own affairs, and don’t worry about other people so much.” – Betty White
“Facebook just sounds like a drag, in my day, seeing pictures of people’s vacations was considered a punishment” – Betty White
“My mother always used to say: ‘The older you get, the better you get, unless you’re a banana.’” – Betty White
“If one has no sense of humor, one is in trouble.” – Betty White
“People have told me, ‘Betty, Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with old friends…’. At my age, if I wanted to keep in touch with old friends, I’d need a Ouija board.”
– Betty White
“You don’t luck into integrity. You work at it.” – Betty White
Summary: Betty White Net Worth
- Betty White’s Net Worth is $75 million.
- She was born in Illinois as Betty (not Elizabeth).
- She was an only child and moved to California then Los Angeles as a child.
- White wanted to be on television but was deemed too unphotogenic, so she began on radio.
- It wasn’t long before Betty was a national star and moved onto screen as a comedian and actress. She also presented many game shows.
- Betty married three times but never had children of her own. Her first marriage ended in divorce as she didn’t want the simple life of living on a farm in Ohio. Her second marriage also ended within two years because she didn’t want a family and preferred working. Her third marriage was a long-lasting success that sadly ended almost 20 years in when her husband died of stomach cancer.
- Betty White died on 31 December 2021 six days after having a stroke. She was 99.
What do you think of this Betty White net worth article? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.