GRIEVING – Betty White, one of America’s most beloved actresses, passed away this Friday at the age of 99.
Léa LUCAS with AFP –
She would have been 100 years old in less than twenty days, and was still looking forward to it … last Tuesday on Twitter: “My hundredth birthday … I can’t believe it’s coming.” Sadly, this will be actress Betty White’s last message to the American public who adored her for nearly seven decades. The television icon went out on Friday.
“Even though Betty was going to be 100, I thought she would live forever”, lamented his agent Jeff Witjas who communicated the news in the American press. “I don’t think she was afraid of dying, because she always wanted to be with her beloved husband, Allen Ludden. She thought she would be by his side again”, he added, moved.
The blue-eyed blonde, who first appeared on television in 1949, has won multiple Emmy Awards over her long career: “It’s amazing that I’m still in this job, and that you still support me!”, the actress joked at the Emmy Awards in 2018.
From the White House to Hollywood, a shower of tributes
But where did this essential actress come from, who in 2010 – at 88 years old – became the oldest person to host the famous entertainment show? Saturday Night Live ? Born in 1922 in the suburbs of Chicago, Betty White began her career in modeling, before working in radio, playing in commercials and obtaining leading small roles.
Her life was then inseparable from the small screen, and it was in a game show that she met her third husband, Allen Ludden, who introduced him at that time. The couple remained married from 1963 until the latter’s death in 1981. Since then, this woman of character, very committed to the animal cause, has never remarried, and has had no children.
While Hollywood has been quick to honor his memory, the rains of tributes are expected to continue in the coming hours. Starting with the American Head of State, Joe Biden, who did not fail to react on Twitter: “Betty White has put a smile on the lips of generations of Americans. She is a cultural icon that will be sorely missed. Jill and I are thinking of her family and all those who loved her this New Year’s Eve,” he wrote.
The US military has also expressed its emotion at the loss of a “true legend on and off the screen” who also had “served in World War II in the United States Women’s Volunteer Services”.
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