page_title: Betty White
section_title: 1970s
hierarchical_section_title: Betty White / Entertainment career / 1970s
caption_attribution_description: Cast photo from the television program The Mary Tyler Moore Show. After the news that most of the WJM-TV staff has been fired, everyone gathers in the newsroom. From left-Betty White (Sue Ann Nivens), Gavin MacLeod (Murray Slaughter), Ed Asner (Lou Grant), Georgia Engel (Georgette Baxter), Ted Knight (Ted Baxter), Mary Tyler Moore (Mary Richards).
context_page_description: Betty Marion White Ludden is an American actress and comedian, with the longest television career of any entertainer, spanning more than 80 years. Regarded as a pioneer of television, she was one of the first women to exert control in front of and behind the camera and is recognized as the first woman to produce a sitcom, which contributed to her receiving the honorary title Mayor of Hollywood in 1955.
  White is known for her award-winning roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls – the Writers Guild of America has included both sitcoms in its list of the 101 Best-Written TV Series of All Time – and Elka Ostrovsky on Hot in Cleveland.
  A staple panelist of American game shows such as Password, Match Game, Tattletales, The Hollywood Squares and The $25,000 Pyramid, White has been dubbed "the first lady of game shows", and became the first woman to receive an Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host in 1983 for the show Just Men! She is also known for her appearances on Boston Legal, The Carol Burnett Show, and Saturday Night Live.
context_section_description: In 1973, White made several appearances in the fourth season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as the "man-hungry" Sue Ann Nivens. The role garnered White her second and third Emmy Awards. Although considering the role a highlight of her career, she has described the character's image as "icky sweet", feeling she was the very definition of feminine passivity, owing to the fact she always satirized her own persona onscreen in just such a way.
  A running gag was that Sue Ann's hard-edged private personality was the complete opposite of how she presented herself on her show. "We need somebody who can play sickeningly sweet, like Betty White," Moore herself suggested at a production meeting, which resulted in casting White herself. White won two Emmy Awards back-to-back for her role in the hugely popular series.
  In 1975, NBC replaced her as hostess and commentator on the Tournament of Roses Parade broadcast, feeling she was too identified with rival network CBS due to her newfound success on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. White admitted to People magazine it was difficult "watching someone else do my parade", although she soon would start a ten-year run as hostess of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for CBS.
  Following the end of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1977, White got her own sitcom on CBS, her fourth show entitled The Betty White Show (the first having been broadcast a quarter century earlier), during the 1977–78 season, in which she co-starred with John Hillerman and former Mary Tyler Moore co-star Georgia Engel. It was canceled after one season.
  White appeared several times on The Carol Burnett Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson appearing in many sketches, and began guest-starring in a number of television movies and television miniseries, including With This Ring, The Best Place to Be, Before and After, and The Gossip Columnist.
caption: A scene from the final episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (from left): White, Gavin MacLeod, Ed Asner, Georgia Engel, Ted Knight, and Mary Tyler Moore
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