Betty White, last golden girl, dies at 99

Actress Betty White, the unforgettable innocent peasant girl from the series ‘The Golden Girls’, died last night at her home in Los Angeles. Active until the end, just three days ago he promoted on his Twitter account an event celebrating his centenary birthday, on January 17. She was the oldest and, even so, the only survivor of the four protagonists of that unforgettable television comedy that triumphed between the late 80s and early 90s and dealt with the life of this group of senior citizens. The role of Rose Nylund put her on the global stage, but her career was long and long, the longest in history according to the Guinness book of record: seven decades.

“Even though Betty was about to turn 100, I believed she would live forever,” agent Jeff Witjas told People magazine, which advanced the story. White had made his debut on the small screen in 1949, when television was still an adventure, with an experimental channel in Los Angeles and in 2014, at the age of 92, he was still starring in a series called “Hot in Cleveland.”

She was absolutely beloved in the United States, endearing to those who lived through her heyday and a kind of pop icon for later generations. Proof of this is that in 2009 an admirer launched a campaign to get the veteran star to present a chapter of ‘Saturday Night Live’, the great comic night show on American television, and his appearance won him an Emmy. It was the seventh on his back. In the last decade it experienced a rebirth. Her television appearances multiplied, she played a role in Sandra Bullock’s film The Proposal, and the Associated Press voted her the 2010 entertainment star of the year.

He was, however, more than just a lovable TV character. White broke barriers for herself and other women in a still very dark time. In the 40s, she was the first woman to be nominated for this award for her variety shows and in the 50s, one of the few that was already producing and starring in her own series: Life with Elizabeth. She was also the first to hire a female director for her talk show. “Feminist movements were far from existing, we didn’t even think about what we achieved,” she recalled a long time ago.