American TV Icon Betty White Passes At 99

According to TMZ, Betty White has passed away at the age of 99.  Just a few days shy of her 100th birthday.

She reportedly passed away at her Los Angeles home at about 9:30 AM on Friday, December 31st, 2021.

Her cause of death was not immediately known.

According to Wikipedia, Betty White was born Betty Marion White in Oak Park, Illinois on January 17th, 1922.  She was the only child of homemaker Christine Tess and lighting company executive Horace Logan White.  When she was a little over a year old, the family moved to California.  During the great depression, her father used to make a sell small crystal radios.  As a cheap form of entertainment and information when many people had little money, White was able to trade the radios for nearly anything the family needed.

Betty loved the outdoors and really wanted to be a forest ranger.  However, in those days, women were not allowed to be rangers.  Instead, capitalizing on her love of writing and entertaining, she decided to pursue a career in acting.

In 1930, when she was just 8 years old, she appeared on an episode of a radio show called "Empire Builders"  Her first appearance on TV was in 1939 when her and a classmate sang songs for an experiemental broadcast.

During World War II, she volunteered for the American Women's Volunteer Services where she helped with the shipping of supplies through the California.

After the war, she attemped to get into movies, but was not considered "photogenic".  Because of this, she started taking radio acting jobs.  In the early 1950s, she was able to break into TV.

Over the course of seven decades, she was featured on dozens of shows.  She had regular roles on shows like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Hot In Cleveland", "Modern Family", and "Boston Legal".  However, she is probably best known for her role of Rose Nyland in "The Golden Girls" and the short-lived spinoff "Golden Palace".

She was truly an icon and an inspiration to millions of young women who wanted to get into acting.

Rest In Peace...  You will be missed!  Thank you for being a friend.