050 Golden Rose transcript (Betty White)

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[00:00:00] Amit: This is Famous and Gravy, a podcast about quality of life as we see it one dead celebrity at a time. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

[00:00:11] Michael: This person died 2021, age 99. During World War ii, she served in the American Women's Voluntary Services and drove a PX truck delivering soap, toothpaste and candy to soldiers.

[00:00:27] Friend: Mother Teresa.

[00:00:30] Michael: Not Mother Teresa. In the early 1960s, she was best known as a very busy freelance guest. Game shows were her specialty.

[00:00:41] Friend: Penny Marshall.

[00:00:42] Michael: Not Penny Marshall. She had a longstanding interest in animal welfare.

[00:00:48] Friend: Is it the chimpanzee lady? Uh, Jane Goodall?

Not

[00:00:52] Michael: Jane Goodall. Oh man. She began her radio career by saying one word on a popular comedy show. The word was "Parkay", the name of the margarine sponsoring the show.

[00:01:06] Friend: Carol Burnett.

[00:01:08] Michael: Not Carol Burnett, who as of this recording, I believe is still with us. Her television career spanned seven decades and she holds the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest ever for a female entertainer.

[00:01:22] Friend: Holy moly. Um, Betty, Betty White. Oh, Betty White.

[00:01:27] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Betty White. Woo, woo. Whoa. Yay. Nice.

[00:01:34] Archival: Please welcome my very, very good friend, the very, very lovely Betty White everybody, Betty White. Hi. Hi, sweetheart. Hello, sweetie. It's lovely to see you. W would you mind if I plug something? All right. All right. Yeah, yeah. You're here to start filming a Disney movie called The Proposal with Sandra Bullocks in it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yes I am. Right, but actually, oh, yeah, but, but actually Craig, I wanted to plug that Will Smith movie Bad Boys. It's, it's playing on Showtime right now, and it's a hell of a lot better than this crap fist.

[00:02:17] Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

[00:02:20] Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor.

[00:02:22] Michael: And on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer A big question, would I want that life today?

Betty White died 2021. Age 99. This is episode number 50. This is episode

50. Holy shit, right. This is, uh, it's golden. This is our golden episode. This is our golden episode. Do I have something I want to say to you, Michael? Oh, uh. Thank you for being a friend. Your heart is true. Jesus, you're a pal and a

confidant.

I was gonna save that for the end of the episode. Thanks. No,

[00:03:04] Amit: but I mean that we've traveled this journey together. Yeah. Here we are at 50. Yeah. And I think the words were perfect, and so I wanted to start

[00:03:11] Michael: the episode. With that, I'm gonna get emotional at the top of the episode. Thank you, sir. This has been one of the more life-affirming journeys I could have ever imagined.

Very desirable to do this podcast with you. Thank you. This episode is even more special in that we're doing something a little bit different today. We have invited someone special to join us for the first part of the conversation. Jennifer Keesen Armstrong. Jennifer, hello. Hi. Would you mind just introducing yourself a little bit and saying a brief word about who you are and what you do?

Absolutely. I am a pop culture historian. I write books about pop culture history, and I have written books about Seinfeld, sex in the city. And perhaps more relevant to our topic today, the Mary Tyler Moore Show. And I wrote a book called When Women Invented Television, which looks at the very early pioneering television careers of four women from 1948 to about 1955.

And one of those four women is in fact, Betty White. I'll just say that I first learned about you when we were doing the research for the, uh, Mary Tyler Moore episode. Uh, I came across your book, Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted. Uh, and then in that episode, I actually even quoted the article you wrote for buzzfeed about the shelf life and staying power of the Mary Tyler Moore show.

So I've become a really big fan of your work. The other thing though that I think is relevant is that you've actually written obituaries before. That's right. I have, I am an obituary enthusiast and I started my career as a real working journalist, like at a daily local newspaper. So I, you know, one of the things they would give to, you know, new-ish reporters often was obituaries.

And I found it to be such an honor because here I was saying the last word, especially the ones written by someone versus someone you know in the family. Just write something up. Yeah. This was doing a little bit of reporting, talking to a few people, and really having the last word on their lives. And so for, since then, I've always been really interested in them.

There's such a summation. There's such a, just like, you know, this is it. This is what this life meant. You only know the meaning of the life the minute it ends. And cuz you know, the ending, it's just like, it's just like a serialized television show in that way. Yeah. It's a complete story. I mean, that's right at the heart of our show.

I've really enjoyed your analyses of. Obituary leads and I am a big nerd about leads, you know, which is the first sentence of any article. And I sort of like the concept. I mean obituary or No, but like really putting the lens on this, it, it does make me nervous listening to it though. Cause I'm like, I wonder what this is.

Yeah. Wrote this. Yeah. That's silly. Must be feeling We kept some distance from the actual author act. I've sent a few emails, but until they get back to us and say, Hey assholes, quit critiquing our first line and we're gonna keep doing it. Yeah. Right. I mean, like in most cases too, I've done a lot of this as well, is pre, I've written, pre-written a number of obituaries Right.

In my day. Yeah. Because of celebrities. Right. And one time I even had this crazy experience where, I essentially informed myself that Dick Clark had died. Oh. Um, I got an email alert from Entertainment Weekly and it was like, bye, Jennifer Armstrong. Oh, that's hilarious. Dick Clark died at the, I was like, apparently I wrote this.

Weird. All right, well that's a good segue. Let's get to it. Category one, grading the first line of the obituary Here, Amit, Jennifer, and I are going to take a look at the first line of the obituary and grade it on a scale of one to 10, Betty White, who created two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history.

The Nifo Maniacal, Sue Anne Nevins on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Sweet, but Dim Rosen Island on the Golden Girls, and who capped her long career with a comeback that included a triumphant appearance as the host of Saturday Night Live at the age of 88, died on Friday at her home in Los Angeles.

She was 99. I'm coming outta the gate with some real opinions. I wonder if I'm gonna anticipate some of your opinions here, Jennifer. Like this is only the second half of the story's like that story with Suan Rivers, right? That's

[00:07:21] Amit: with as they start with the 1970s.

[00:07:23] Michael: Yeah. And, and, okay. What goes into the thinking of writing the first line of the obituary?

I think it's one, you know, this is what you know this person for and sometimes it's like what you should know them for. So I do feel like. What most people, most living people remember her for does begin with Sue Anne Nevins and the Mary Tyler Moore Show. But it totally like misses the early pioneering work she did.

That Jennifer, I know you can speak to. It's big and yet somehow still incomplete. I think that's right

[00:07:51] Amit: because she holds these titles that I didn't know about the first Lady of Television, literally meaning she was the first lady on television. Yeah. That's, um, the first woman to produce a show. All of these things, all of these firsts, all of these incredibly pioneering things.

Yeah. Do you shoehorn that into the first line?

[00:08:09] Michael: I don't know. Okay. Jennifer, your thoughts on all this? They had a big assignment. Yeah. We cannot deny that. Right. I am a little surprised given the length of the sentence. It's like there's a lot of real estate dedicated specifically to describing these two characters.

Yeah. Right. Like Nifo, maniacal and all that. Um, I mean, I get it. And they're making a contrast. That's fun. Yeah. But could we do that a little later maybe and just, I don't know if there was a way, and I'll tell you what I know the Saturday Night Live thing is, is in there because, um, millennials and on down only knew her as the like crazy old grandma lady Totally.

Who was on Saturday Night Live and in the sys commercial. Yeah. So I think that's why like somebody was like, you have to put that into Yeah. But I wonder if there was a way to kind of go grander with the Arc. Yes. And say who was one of the first on television came through with two iconic characters on maybe, I guess you'd name check the shows.

And banned all the way until this renaissance of the 2010s. Like I would be tempted if I had this assignment, my first attempt would be to try, but I am also unnaturally obsessed with her early days. So, um, no, but I think it's right. I agree that you should have gone grander here. Like, I'm torn a little bit because these are also some of my favorite things about her.

I mean, and, and I I love the use of the word nifo. Um, Nifo maniacal.

[00:09:34] Amit: Nifo. Maniacal. I think that's right. I look, it's not a word I use, but you don't giggle in the middle of the word that that's not in, but, but I

[00:09:40] Michael: think Jennifer's got a good point. Pronunciation, right? Nifo, maniacal. I'll try not to giggle too much, but it is also.

Very early on in the sentence too, right? It sort of plants this idea, you know, before we've gotten to the other things that she's done, you know, I SueAnn, Nevins, three words, Mary Tyler Moore show, you know, also three words. So it like already you're starting to run out of real estate. Sweet, but dim. I mean, they are accurate descriptions of the characters.

But as you said too, Jennifer, she's fucking 99. They had time to plan this one out. Yeah. Oh, they've had that ready? There must have been earlier versions that nod to part of why SueAnn Nivens is such a memorable character. You know, she's still funny today, but she was kind of funny in the time because Betty White was playing against Type, which means that she had a type leading into the Mary Tyler Moore show.

Yes. There's no like recognition or acknowledgement of that earlier persona of, you know, sweet Dimple lady who'd been on television since the inception of television. Yes. Now here's the joke. Wait a minute. Alright. I know. Tonight I think I'll wear my baseball stocking. That's very funny. Now finish dressing.

No, you're supposed to ask me why I call 'em baseball stockings. Go on, ask me. Why

[00:10:55] Amit: do you call 'em baseball stockings?

[00:10:58] Michael: Because they have three runs. Well, I don't know. What do you think, Ahmen? Where are you with

[00:11:04] Amit: this? I think Jennifer said it well when it seems like they have a choice to make to either be very creative with their words in order to use some that are all encompassing.

Mm-hmm. That can describe the entire arc, or to be more detailed in these two Hallmark characters. And to quote, like Indiana Jones and Last Crusade, I think they chose poorly. It's an opinion, but I think it's an injustice as well, which is where I default in

[00:11:30] Michael: it. There are some good words in here besides Nifo maniacal, you know, triumphant appearance as the host of Saturday Night Live.

Yes. I like triumphant here. That's good. I mean, it was a triumphant moment too because of the Facebook campaign and like the effort to get her on SNL was, you know, the result of social media and years of Lauren Michael's pestering her and she said, finally, I'll do it. It's not triumphant for her. It's triumphant for the audience in a way.

Yes. What about comeback? What about, what do you feel about the word comeback here, Jennifer? People hate the word comeback in a lot of ways. Mm-hmm. I would object to it more on the grounds for her of like, I. At what point can we stop calling when she returns a comeback? Do you know what I'm saying?

Exactly. Saying, yeah, exactly. Like how many comebacks, think of how many comebacks Sue Anne's already a comeback. Yeah. Yes. And then does that make, I guess the Golden Girls does a comeback. Yeah. And then I guess this is, it's like how many times does this woman have to, you know, Come back before we can just be like, she's good.

Yeah. Like it's not about her memory. Right. How long have we remembered it's a comeback? Because it's been what, three years? Five years? Like Yeah. Let's, you know, look, she was doing other things, but she didn't go away. Yeah. You know? Right. It also does like imply, uh, sort of fighting against the odds to reinsert yourself into the public imagination.

Mm-hmm. Which I don't know that there was that battle. It was more of a choice. It was like she it was the opposite. Exactly. So like, it sort of implies agency in a way. Right. That's a good point. That it was like, I'm gonna do a new, like I'm trying this and instead she was more like sitting at her house Yeah.

Enjoying her life. And then they were like, listen, Facebook really wants you to do a Saturday live. And she's like, Fine. I'm tired of these people asking whatever I, all right. I mean,

[00:13:09] Amit: shit, I love, I love Jennifer's personification of Facebook. Yeah. There, I'm just, I'm picturing like a, a smurf, but like an f as a faces.

Like we can't let Nifo maniac will go,

[00:13:21] Michael: oh, okay, well I'm not, I wanna talk more about this later on. You do? Oh yeah. I think it's so, it's getting more and more weird to me, like the, where we talk about this, that in the end, like that, that's the first thing we learn about her in this obituary. Like, Is that what historians are gonna look at this piece of this document and be like, the main thing I learned is that Betty White played a nifo maniac.

And that's a little weird to me. Well, I'm glad we brought you into the throwing rocks at the obituary. I actually would defend it a a little bit because I do think that part of what gives Betty White staying power from the 1970s onward is like, you know, Rick, and this comes up in Golden Girls, certainly comes up in Saturday Night Live, you know, her sexual identity on some level, like That's right.

It is something that like, that she's willing to go there and read those lines that as are written for her. Um, you know, like there's something very charming about the acknowledgement of her, I don't know, sexual desires. Right. And so I, I actually kind of feel like one of the reasons we know Betty White's name today is because of her willingness to invite that part of her identity into her characters from 1970s onward.

Yes. While still holding. Yeah, that's totally, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That seems great. It's a point. Wanna, anyway, it's, it's, it's sort of sexually positive in order she was,

[00:14:41] Amit: I fully agree. I don't think it's first line stuff. Yeah.

[00:14:44] Michael: Well we could do this all day. I think we might have to grade ahed. Do you have your

[00:14:47] Amit: score?

I do. Okay. This might be my lowest a while.

[00:14:50] Michael: I'm going four. Oh, wow. That's where I

[00:14:52] Amit: was gonna go. Yeah. And this could be Jennifer's persuasion of, I don't think that detail was necessary to describe the two characters. I think the arc was more important. Um, I do like the shoehorning in, of the Saturday Night Live, perhaps as Jennifer pointed out, the use of comeback.

Mm-hmm. Not needed at this point. Like, as LL said, I've, I've been here for years. Um, so yeah, it just a, a few, few too many discounts for me. So I'm

[00:15:18] Michael: landing on four. I think that's a good score. It's also my score. And I guess I would also say that I'm giving it a four out of 10 in part because there was time to write this and I think they really should have given it careful thought about all the things that should have gone into it.

And I just feel like I'm. Dinging points all over the place here where it could have been better. There are some things working, but overall they just could have done a lot better here. Yeah. So four outta 10. Okay. Jennifer, your score, your turn, you've almost persuaded me to four, but I was gonna go five, so not that much different.

Um, and it, I probably gave an extra point for empathy. Yeah. Um, you better, you know what I mean? Having written these, but you're right. I mean, you make a really good point, which I. Helped to make, which is that they had a long time, it wasn't like they had to do this the night of, you know, new Year's Eve when she died.

Um, you know, whenever any one of my celebrities that I've written about dies, it's sort of like a four alarm fire for me. It's time for me to go out and like, write things and be on television and stuff. Yeah. Um, be interviewed and, but I was, I really had a gripe with the coverage, you know, in terms of discounting her pioneering status.

Mm-hmm. In particular, like, I actually wrote things about to that, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah. No, I, and to, to correct the record, I just feel like I was disappointed that even I thought maybe her death was gonna kind of bring that stuff out, but it didn't bring up. I mean, if you like, think of it this way, who else has the world record?

No. One by definition. Yeah. Um, for the longest. Career ever. Who else was literally the first person on a television being test broadcast a couple of floors in a building in LA in the forties? So like in like other people have created even iconic sitcom characters, even sometimes two iconic sitcom characters.

Whereas like this woman has things that no one, even Julia Louie Drefus cannot have in their obituary. Totally. There's a pioneering aspect that's like not captured at all. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I, I, I couldn't agree more. I mean, to quote you, uh, this is from the end of your book, which I was reading earlier.

It's time we remembered Betty White as more than the sassy old lady who still got it. She was also one of television's first female producers and a foundational contributor to the medium who fought patriarchal expectations at every turn. Your book's really good. Thank you. I love that. And the, and all of that stuff is not in here, so.

Four, four, and five. I like that score. Shall we move on? I think we move on. All right. Category two, five things I love about you here. Amit and I work together to come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we are talking about them in the first place. Jennifer, before we let you go, we would love to have you contribute one thing you love about Betty White and then Ahmed, and I'll take it from here.

Sounds good. It is so hard for me to pick one. You can imagine. I mean, my God, and I can't wait to listen to this entire episode to hear all the other things you guys have to say about her. She is really like I, she is very special to me, but I think at least from my special vantage point as a TV historian, especially interested in women in comedy and all of that, if you really look back, there were many changes in technology that this woman's career went through, right?

We went from no one's watching TV to everyone has a TV. To silly sixties television to, you know, kind of more issue driven 1970s Mary Tyler Moore show TV to like fluffy eighties. And then sh we reached the cable era and the streaming era and the internet era. Yeah. And this woman just glides right through it all.

Yeah. She can do whatever it is you need in that era. Betty actually lived to see it all, and that is incredible to me. So I hear two things in there. I hear. Longevity, but it's more than that. It's almost like early adopter fluidity too. Yeah. Well fluidity. But I was also hearing like early adopter. That's right.

And one of the things that I think is great about that answer and really speaks to the North Star of Famous and Gravy is that it's so desirable as a thing I want as I age. How many jokes do people make about old people not being able to adapt to technology and not being able to keep up with the times and like she kept up with the times in her work in the way that was fluid.

As you said, Ahed and as I age, I, you know, I don't ever want to be that, nah, I'm just not gonna learn a new thing. Right. And I think for her it's not necessarily learning, you know, how to get on email or how to work an iPhone or how to. Work a fax machine or whatever it may be at the time. It's more about like, how do I do what I think I do best for this new way it's experienced?

How do I do that best in my craft?

[00:20:00] Amit: Yeah. And it's not anchoring yourself. It's not anchoring your personality and character to something it once was. Right. And I think that's a beautiful thing

[00:20:07] Michael: too. Yeah. Amen to that. Well, Jennifer, that leads us off very well. Thank you for joining us on our golden episode, our 50th episode, and we will, uh, link to the, in the show notes to your work and, uh, your books and, and your articles.

And thank you again for making time for this. This was

[00:20:24] Amit: just awesome. Yeah, thank you. That was awesome.

[00:20:25] Michael: This was so fun. I'd do it anytime. Let me know when it's up so I can put it on the socials. Thank you for being friend. Travel down the road back again. Your heart is true.

[00:20:46] Amit: That was fun. That was

[00:20:47] Michael: fun. All right. I'll take thing number two. Yes. All right. This is sort of simple, but I wanna talk about it for a minute. Okay. Bubbling over with gratitude. Hmm. Have you ever heard the phrase gratitude is an action word? I have not. I've always taken that to mean that if you're feeling grateful, you have something to give.

You are in a state of like selflessness and sort of service oriented action. Right. And Betty White is like bubbling over with gratitude it seems like all the time. I mean, people remark on her humility and her, I, I forget which lifetime achievement award it was, but there's one where, you know, she's getting this extended, longstanding ovation for everything she's done.

I think it was the sag. I think that's right. And she is like emphatic of like, no, I am thanking you. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart and from the bottom of my bottom. Thank you for whatever. I should be presenting an award to you for the privilege of working in this wonderful business all this time, and you still can't get rid of me.

This is the highest point of my entire professional life. To the Screen Actors Guild, to each and every one of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. Right. And, and the way she says it is so authentic and it's so genuine and so heartwarming On my better days, AMED, I like, this is the state I want to exist in.

I, I kind of feel like, you know, for whatever complicated shit is going on in my, on in my life or whatever complicated emotions I might be wrestling with, that, you know, when it all boils down to it, I can either be in a state of resentment or a state of gratitude and I am on my better days in a state of gratitude.

And I see that in Betty White, like in every interview. I am just so happy to have had the career. I had to have tried the things I've done, to have met the people I've met, to have been where I've been. It's so life-affirming. It's just so like, oh my God, do I want that? And so it's a little simple, uh, bubbling over with gratitude, but that's my thing.

I guess number two.

[00:22:57] Amit: Yeah, I agree with that. And something I've learned lately is that you can do that without compromising personality. Like I think you and I both sometimes have cutting personalities. Yeah. You know, um, and you like wear assholes. I. I, yeah. Or cynical. Yeah. Yeah. So let's, let's say cynical, but, uh, that can coexist with gratitude.

And I think when you talked about Betty White's, like sense of humor about it being sometimes with the sexual undertones and everything, it doesn't make you one or the other. Yeah. What I've learned I think, from Betty White and other people like her, is that gratitude does not compromise humor. Right? No.

It, it doesn't compromise criticism. It doesn't compromise. Looking at things, yeah. Cynically, curiously, it can just be there and it can improve your

[00:23:43] Michael: life. That's really well said actually, because so much of the time humor does come at the expense of someone or something. You know, you hear about people punching up or punching down, right?

Yeah. Um, and I agree that you can be in a state of gratitude and still be funny and it not necessarily be harmful or hurtful. I can't think of anybody who better, you know, exemplifies that than Betty. What if you look wonderful now you can sit yourself seriously, sir, cuz you're on a cover. Not a major publication, but nonetheless not a major publication.

But you dogs, I tell you, that's a very major publication. But your career though, that's a good story. Now

it's funny cuz people wanted me topless, but I said no. Weren't you like that? So hard to tell.

I bet you'd be funny on a date if you ever have one.

[00:24:41] Amit: All right. Okay. My turn. This is number three? Yeah. Okay. Uh, live with it. Oh. Does those words mean anything to you?

[00:24:48] Michael: Yes. This is about, uh, the early TV

[00:24:50] Amit: work with, she had a show, she had one of many shows called the Betty White Show, but she had one in particular in the 19, I think she had three

[00:24:56] Michael: or four.

There were three

[00:24:57] Amit: or four incarnations. This was the first one I, um, and I think that will come up, the later ones, possibly in regrets. So, uh, the first one in the fifties was like a, a talk show variety type of show. And she had a dancer on it, a man named Arthur Duncan. And first, I think he was just a sort of guest every now and then.

And then he became just part of the ensemble cast. And he was a black man in 1954. This what became a huge issue, that he was part of the permanent cast and several TV stations in the south, they say, we're gonna pull the show if you don't pull him. If you don't take him off. Yeah. And her response to it was, just

[00:25:36] Michael: deal with it.

Deal with it to the stations. Like, we're not doing anything about that. Fuck you. Deal with

[00:25:40] Amit: it. Yes, exactly. And I don't think she was making a hard stance about civil rights or black rights. She was just saying, this is the best person for the job. This is our show. This is how we entertain. Deal with it.

Yeah. Live with it. And so, so she had an ability to stand her ground. Yes. At a very young age. I mean, she is not very old at this time. I think she's barely even 30 years old. It is not easy to do that as a 29 year old woman in the 1950s against the Jim Crow South. No shit. And so I'm plotting it not just for the slight inch warming it did towards the movement of civil rights, but just the sheer bravery.

[00:26:21] Michael: You know what I like about that in terms of desirability? This is something I struggle with, which is people pleasing. If somebody comes at me with criticism like, oh, how can I make it better? How can I make this person feel happy? And this is obviously like those TV stations in the deep south saying, we're not gonna air this.

You know, my defect is to sometimes my, my error is to sometimes try to accommodate and people please, so stay. It's like how do we find the win-win here? Fucking a And so to like actually stand your ground and say, deal with it. Fuck that. And not even think twice about it, but just like have that default attitude of deal with it that is.

Unquestionably desirable. Okay, I'm gonna go number four. Again, this is a little bit, I hope it doesn't sound trite, but I think it's really true. Great listener who so much of her humor to me comes through listening through timing and reactions, right? I mean, you see this in talk shows, you see this in the game shows, you see this with, you know, her characters on TV shows.

I mean, I feel like she's got timing right and that's part of what makes her funny. But I think that part of the reason, like the quote unquote real Betty White, not the characters, part of the reason she's so goddamn charming is because she's a really good listener. This is also very firmly in the category of desirability.

For me, it's something that is a life goal of mine to always be a better listener, and I don't think you're ever done with that. The joke I make sometimes about getting into podcasting is I got into this cuz I like to talk. And much to my chagrin, I learned that. To do this well, you have to be a good listener.

I think it's her superpower actually. I think it's part of what makes her such a, um, I don't know, ingratiating star. Like so part of why we love her so much, one piece of evidence on this, she often complains about, she does not like pre-interviews cuz she doesn't like the thing to be scripted out before she goes on tv.

So if you do Letterman, you get a call from the producer saying, what are you gonna talk about? And, and you know, Letterman might have some talking points. I think one of the reasons she liked Craig Ferguson a lot is that he often deviated from what was hashed out in the pre-interview and she could just have a conversation.

She said this was something Jack Far did. Again, do you know we've known each other almost 20 years. We have, I know. Isn't, not Inable. Oh, and then you had to talk about Houdini. Yeah.

[00:28:34] Amit: No. Did you ever, uh, did you I

[00:28:39] Michael: I not only knew who No, you didn't know. Oh, yes I did. Which really, we had a, a very lovely relationship.

Oh, we did. Does this refresh your memory? No, I, I, I really thought we had something going and then the son of a gun disappeared.

[00:29:00] Amit: That's a very astute observation. Uh, I didn't pick up on that, but I see it. I see it entirely now. I see it very clearly.

[00:29:07] Michael: Uh, thank you. I thought a lot about that and I had to like, not say tree hug and hippie and animal fanatic.

I figured it's gonna come up, but I'm gonna give you number five.

[00:29:14] Amit: I'm gonna go with Lucille Ball and John Steinbeck. There was clear evidence of close friendships. Yeah. Here, and this is, uh, one of our most elusive topics on Famous and Gravy cuz it's really, really hard to sometimes get data and quantify.

It's much easier when you have high profile friendships. Several of the people we've covered, we know that they have deep and close friendships, but they're not necessarily other famous people. And so it's very hard for us to take a look into that life, however Betty White did. And so we just have.

Evidence of her commitment to friendship and friendship as family. Yeah. You know, essentially she was alone the last 40 years of her life. That's right. But she had incredibly close friendships with her peers. Yes. Lucille Ball. Yeah. Being one of them. Mary Tyler Moore, absolutely. Being another one. And these weren't just like, let's just catch up every now and then.

These were shoulders to cry on. Yeah. And the other one that I love about that is John Steinbeck, because it's such a deviation from the other ones. And this was a couple friendship. They were friends. It sounded like Steinbeck was friends with her husband. He was friends, yes. With her husband. Uh, and then they sort of became friends as a group.

Yeah. But extremely, extremely tight. So much so that Betty White, I believe, holds as a gift. John Steinbeck gave his like draft of his Noble Priest prize acceptance speech. They, she had these close friendships and these diverse friendships and you know, there's this, this sociological saying that saying you could only maintain, I think six or seven really, really close friendships.

Yeah. And nowadays, you know, they, they say a lot of people only have one or two or zero. Uh, but it seems like Betty White filled in those seven with very, very close intimate friendships in which she could call upon people, uh, in good times and bad. And they could do the same. Yeah.

[00:30:58] Michael: You know what, that is a great list of five.

So let's fill it in. Jennifer's was, I'm gonna call it fluidity, longevity and early adopter. My number two, bubbling over with gratitude. You had bravery and standing

[00:31:11] Amit: her ground, um, standing her ground. Yeah. Yeah. With, with civil rights message. And what was,

[00:31:15] Michael: what was the phrase? It was Let, um, live with it.

Live with it, yeah. Uh, number. Three, live with it. Uh, I had number four, great listener. And number five, close, genuine friendships. Who, what a list. All right. Category three, Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people take a little portal into John Malkovich mind, where they can have a front row seat to his experiences answers.

Okay, this is a well-documented malkovich. It's sort of maybe not all that interesting, but it allows me to talk about a sixth thing I love about Betty White. So we're just gonna do it. Taking on the role of Sue Anne Nivens in the Mary Tyler Moore Show, but more specifically the The Nifo Maniacal. The Nifo Maniacal, Sue Anne Nivens.

And it's actually about that. I thought about this a lot cuz I was looking for a couple of pivot points or, you know, inflection points in Betty White's story. But the reason I went with SueAnn Nivens, I guess I was just thinking about it. All right, so it's 1973. Betty White, up to this point has been a pretty traditional sort of vanilla figure on television, right?

Great smile, nice hair, conservative outfits. You know, she sort of understood as a kind of generic figure by the popular public, but then the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which is this unbelievably important TV property that represents a giant leap forward for feminism and for women's rights because of the variety of characters played on there.

The writers said, we need a Betty White type. And apparently they tried to cast a Betty White type and somebody said, why don't you just ask Betty White? And so Betty White says, no, I want to do it. You know, I'm, I'm game for this role. And she was always supposed to do one episode, but then becomes this character.

I. What I love about this on the Malkovich side is that it being 1973, you know, she's 51. When she takes this role on, this is like the first time I see her sort of acknowledge a sexually positive side. You know, the whole humor of the thing is like behind the scenes and off the camera. She's getting busy.

Yeah. You know, there's something that's funny about that in SueAnn Nevins and something that remains funny and endearing, but not necessarily central in how Betty White is perceived. All throughout what have we here from Lou

to the most voluptuous, exciting, desirable creature on God's earth, Lou with admiration and lust.

So I just wonder how much she was like thinking about, all right, I'm going to. Allow a new boundary here to be crossed. I'm gonna play a character that five years ago wouldn't have been okay and is absolutely gonna deviate from how I am understood by the TV watch in public. I. I want to be behind those eyes as she's considering that and deciding where to adjust the boundaries for herself.

That's my malkovich.

[00:34:24] Amit: Yeah. Very interesting. It's very analogous to, to like 1973

[00:34:29] Michael: and just Yes. That's, that's what it, yeah. It's representative of something, right? Yeah. Okay.

[00:34:33] Amit: Good one. So I'm gonna fast forward to 2010. Uh, in fact, Michael, I'm, I'm gonna highlight, this was November 9th, 2010. Okay. That's my

[00:34:41] Michael: birthday.

Oh, happy birthday in 2010. That wasn't an appropriate response at all. Well, I hear it's my birthday and I. I got lost with where we were. I thought I was, I took the John Malcolm part.

[00:34:51] Amit: You just know you were picturing candles and cake. I get it. I did this. I do the same. All right. Um, okay. So Betty White, a young Betty White, unlike many of the people we talk about, including Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White does not have this childhood longing to be an actress or be a Hollywood

[00:35:06] Michael: star.

Yeah.

[00:35:08] Amit: Her dream, even into late adolescence was to be a forest ranger. That's right. Right. Which, and this carried through her lifelong love of animals and animal causes. She said it was born out of a lot of her family trips to the Sierra Nevadas. Yeah. So she really wanted to be a forest ranger, uh, learning at the time here in the late thirties that women cannot be a forest stranger.

Mm-hmm. But she was very public about saying, especially as she gained notoriety, is I just really wanted to be a forest stranger. So fast forward 70 something years and November 9th, 2010, she is named an honorary. Forest stranger.

[00:35:45] Michael: Yeah, I saw this. There's like a press event, right? Yeah. There's a huge

[00:35:48] Amit: press event.

[00:35:49] Michael: I just can't tell you what, what this day means to me. My mother and dad and I were pretty very close paddles and my first memories are riding in front of my dad on his horses. We packed into the high Sierras. As excited as I am today and as grateful as I am, I know two people who would be. Over the moon.

My mother and dad, thank you.

[00:36:20] Amit: So she receives this honor because they knew she wanted to do it. Women weren't allowed at the time. At this point in 2010 when she receives the honor, 38% of for rangers are women. Right. So not equal, but not bad. Yeah. What I wanna know is, so Betty, why add this dream, which could not be fulfilled due to gender limitations?

Yeah. At the time, so here she is receiving this award as an honorary ranger. So by no means do I think that this is like triumphant, right? Because she's just an honorary ranger. It's not like she's actually, you know, roaming the parks. But I wanna know if there is anger and regret about what she could not do, huh?

70 years ago. And I wanna know if that carries forward for that long.

[00:37:06] Michael: It's interesting, I read this moment as triumphant. Actually, you said it, you didn't see it as triumphant.

[00:37:11] Amit: Oh, I see it as triumphant. But what we're, I'm getting behind way behind those malov eyes, and I want to know if she was Huh. Upset at that moment.

Huh? Either anger at where society was at the time, or regret at being born, you know, at the wrong time. She said she looks at it with pride.

[00:37:33] Michael: I, you wonder about what's going on inside.

[00:37:36] Amit: I wonder what's going on, uh, inside. And I think that's a valuable thing to know for somebody that's lived such an impressive arc, but knowing that their actual initial dream was not possible.

Yeah. And I think that's also something I'm very curious about is how much of letting go is there, what do you suspect?

[00:37:54] Michael: I mean, out of that, I, I wouldn't have thought she would've hung onto to it. Yeah. So that's what I suspect,

[00:37:59] Amit: but what I wanna know is, it's, it's true. Yeah. Is, is there actually peace and

[00:38:03] Michael: resolution?

Yeah. All right. Let's pause

[00:38:09] Amit: Michael. You know, when we go to restaurants and I don't know what to order, then ultimately I'll just ask the server, well, what should I order next? Yeah. And I wish a similar thing existed for other things I consume, like, like books

[00:38:24] Michael: did you say? For books? For books. Oh. Well that's easy.

If you go to half Price books. There are all kinds of people who work in the store who are excellent at recommending books. Have you ever done this?

[00:38:36] Amit: No, I've never known to ask them. I thought

[00:38:39] Michael: they were just, they are knowledge keepers. They are readers, and they're there to say, Hey, how can I help you? What are you reading these days?

What are you into? What are you looking for? I mean, every time I've gotten into a conversation with one of the half Price Books employees, I've always walked out of there with something new. That was excellent.

[00:38:56] Amit: So you're saying I can go ask a half-Price Books book seller if I don't know what to read next, or I'm looking for a gift

[00:39:04] Michael: idea?

I think that's exactly right. You don't need to know what you're gonna buy when you walk into half-price books. And if you just need a book, these people are there to help. And you know what? Half Price Books is the nation's largest new and used book seller with 120 stores in 19 states. And Half Price Books is also online@hpb.com.

All right. Category four, love and marriage. How many marriages, also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? Okay, we have three marriages. The first one is to a man named Dick Barker in 1945. This is a kind of post-war marriage. Betty was 23 years old. They divorced after I saw six or eight months.

Very quickly, very quickly. Um, in her autobiography, she's got several autobiographies by, by the way, I read a couple of them. She didn't even mention this man by name. Okay. Second marriage to a man named Lane Allen in 1947. So just a couple years later. She's about 25 now. By this time, Betty White does have a dream of being on television.

The Forest Service, uh, opportunities are not forthcoming, and she's caught wind of this new thing called TV and she's trying to break in. He does say he wants to be supportive of her career. That turns out not to be true once her career gets some real momentum. She lands this job on an early TV show with a guy named Ardine, I think his name is, and all of a sudden she's working five days a week, five and a half hours a day, and that, that comes to like six days a week.

I mean, she's really like getting some momentum and, uh, lane unfortunately is not having it. And so I. They divorced in 1949. They were separated for a period of time, and Betty is 28 at that point. Uh, so she's twice divorced by age 28. You know, as she

[00:40:52] Amit: tells it in her autobiography is he wanted to have children and she didn't.

[00:40:57] Michael: I never saw her say I didn't want to have children. I only saw her say I wanted to have a career. I didn't wanna have a traditional family. It's not that she

[00:41:04] Amit: didn't wanna have children. The perception of Betty White still in her autobiography, written as recently as 2012 is that you can't do both. Yeah.

And she still held that.

[00:41:14] Michael: She, but she was actually, she was very, uh, this I do remember. She was very clear of there are exceptions and I couldn't do both. Yes. She was actually very explicit about like owning. That she, Betty White could not do both. Not that it could not be

[00:41:26] Amit: done. Yes. Good clarification. But yes, she does not believe that she could both be a mother and a career woman.

[00:41:34] Michael: Yeah. You know, she did have like, sort of nice ish things to say about Lane. He got married and divorced again, and then he, uh, she said third time's the charm, and that was the case with her too. That's a pretty good segue to Alan Luden. This is, they're married in 1963. Betty's third and final husband, she's 41 at this point.

He died in 1981, so they were, I think three days shy of their 18 year anniversary. She was 59 when he died. They did not have any kids together. Betty White never had biological children. She was a stepmom to three of Alan's kids. Alan was a widow when they got married. I did do a little bit of digging into the stepchildren, and it does sound like there was some tension, particularly with the oldest daughter at first, but she's a teenager and all three of the stepkids were invited to Betty White's 98th birthday party.

And what I could find, and I didn't do a deep dive, but they basically like good relations with stepmom and she sort of owns the stepmom role to some extent. Let's talk a little bit more about Alan because, so he's really good friends with Grant Teer. Mary Tyler, Moore's husband, Betty was like, it's almost like.

Alan wanted their approval of her or something like that. Yes. Uh, and he was a game show host.

[00:42:48] Amit: Yeah. He was the host of Password. Yeah. Which I, I just, oh

[00:42:51] Michael: god, I love that. Yeah. And this is another candidate for Thing I love about Betty White Gamer. And now here's your host on password. Alan Luden. Evening to you.

Nice to have you with us this Monday evening. Jack Par, it's a pleasure to have you back. I'm very happy to be here and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Hello Betty. Hello, Alan. What are your plans for the summer, Betty? Well, I'm gonna do some, what did you have in mind now, Betty here, uh, your first partner tonight, Betty is, what kind of a honeymoon did you have?

This is my show, and I asked the question. This marriage is talking, talked about with, uh, a lot of, um, fondness by Betty White. I mean, it does sound love of her life. There was, uh, in the, uh, inside the actor studio when asked about the, it was a Pearl Gates question, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say to you when you arrive at the pearl gates?

Come on in, Betty. Here's a, it's really emotional, like the audience. It melted me when I saw it. His cancer was some sort of bladder cancer that spread. They caught it late and she never married a again.

[00:44:08] Amit: No. And her quote there was, when you've had the best, what do you need with the rest?

[00:44:12] Michael: Yeah. So what do you

[00:44:13] Amit: think?

So the marriage to Alan was only 18 years.

[00:44:18] Michael: Only 18 years. 18 years is a long

[00:44:19] Amit: time. 18 years is a long time. We're talking about 99 years later. I have not

[00:44:23] Michael: been, well, yes, in the grand scheme of things, I get it. But still like 18 years, let's not say like only 18 years. Well, yeah. So like, I

[00:44:29] Amit: guess what I want to talk about or inquire about is, is your take, is this a, a perfect, beautiful match and a sad love story and hopefully they're reunited now?

Or was it just because it was 18 years, it didn't have time to go through the tougher

[00:44:46] Michael: parts? I'm inclined towards the love of her life and hopefully they're reunited now. Version of the story. That's obviously the story I want to tell. You know, I don't know. I think this links up with the children question too, cuz it's kind of interesting.

I mean, we, we've talked about people who have no children on this show before. And if you go back and if you read through Jennifer's book, there's definitely like questions coming at Betty White in the forties and fifties. You know why no kids, why no marriage? You know what's wrong with you, right? There is a live with it attitude.

To go back to your thing, you love number three of like. There's some of that live with it attitude too, when it comes to marriage for Betty White, I, I am very curious about, and I don't mean this to sound the wrong way, but about her sex life after Alan, whether she dated again, cuz it is kind of part of the humor of her.

Yes. You know, throughout, I mean, and if you watch the SNL thing, the npr Skip Florence, what delicious treat are you going to share with us today? Ah, well, a lot of people like my pumpkin pie and of course my, my carrot cake is obviously legendary, but if there's one thing I'm known for, it's my muffin.

Wow. Florence. There's a tangy taste in this muffin. Is that a cherry? Well, no, no. My muffin hasn't had a cherry since 1939.

There is a kind of like acknowledgement of sexuality for her, and I'd like to think that she has partners available who she's okay with, and we just don't know about them. Maybe she even has boyfriends, you know? Did she move on? I mean, is that what you're asking

[00:46:34] Amit: about? She made statements that she does not wanna marry again, but she also had no public dating record and any reference she made to it was exactly this and like this, this joking context.

Yeah.

[00:46:45] Michael: You know, I mean, I think she's good about deflecting in interviews and only talking about, I think she draws boundaries and knows how to talk about the things she wants to and not talk about the things that she doesn't want to talk to. Yeah.

[00:46:54] Amit: A little weird though. I'm not gonna put this in the desirable category for myself Yeah.

Of Betty White.

[00:46:59] Michael: I tend to agree, but it's more about the marriage and less about the children. Like I actually am, am impressed by the, her decision, which seems very conscious of like, children don't make sense in my life and I've got love to give and I'll be giving it, you know, to nature and to animals and to fans.

And I don't even have to say that. I just have to do that, that I, I certainly admire and, and even admire the live with it way of it and desire the live with it kind of way. But yeah, I'm sort of with you that there is, you also said for thing number five in terms of deep, meaningful friendships. If you look at that, if you look at her work with animal welfare and just her sort of showing up in a lot of places, I mean, I don't know, I don't wanna say compensation, but it does seem like the.

Places where she is giving and receiving love are places where people normally give and receive love inside a traditional family unit, inside a marriage or, or, or with children. Which is not to say she's neglecting those relationships, but she's choosing to seek it somewhere else and to deliver it somewhere else.

When I said,

[00:48:01] Amit: I'm not sure about the desirability, all I was talking about was the guarding of her emotions. Yeah. In those last 40 years. But you touched on a wonderful point, which I think is actually symbolic in her career too. And it is friends as family. Yeah. And so the Golden Girls was quite pioneering in the sense that it showed these four women living together as a family unit, as that is an option.

As your support group. Yeah. In your own family at that time. And Betty White used to say that she'd get letters from like, Women in her twenties that are like, I wanna come live with you and I want you to be my family. But she showed this alternative family model and lifestyle, which was living with friends, which was a, A brand new concept.

Yeah. To be at least seen on tv. Yeah. And that's not irrelevant at all to the love and marriage category, because that's kind of how she lived. Friends we're her family.

[00:48:49] Michael: We're her love. Yeah. And animals. I think you'd have to put animals in there as well. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Shall we move on? Yes. All right.

Category five net worth. I saw 75 million. Yeah, that's what Betty White was worth at death. Okay, so that's a very high number. Yes. But you remember, like Alex Trebek was 2 50, 200 50 million. Right? I was kind of expecting something north of a hundred million for Betty White. I'm certainly happy with this.

This is a lot of money. And she is in the upper, upper, upper echelons. Right. And she's able to go where she wants and hang out with who she wants and pick up the tab however she wants. It's a high number, but there was a part of me that was like, huh, I thought there would be more. Why would you think. Just because the royalties on some of these properties I think are a lot.

Um-huh. You know, her charity work is really not to be dismissed here. The stuff she does for animal welfare is substantial. I don't want more money. I guess I just would, I was sort of somehow expecting more. You were not, you thought this looked about right. Yeah. The Golden

[00:49:47] Amit: Girls ended in 92. Everything she did after that was appearances with the exception of Hot in Cleveland.

Yeah. Uh, was a series that she was on, and I did look that up. She did make a total of about 10 million through the run of that show. Yeah. You know, there were the Snickers ads and so forth, but there was not, it was mostly syndication money coming later from the Golden Girls. Let me

[00:50:06] Michael: put it this way. I saw this, I was like, wow.

A lot of money. But

[00:50:09] Amit: I could have seen more. Yeah. I was, I came at it completely different. I was impressed. Okay. It was higher than I thought. Interesting. And my first thought when I saw it was 99 year old woman. This is compounded interest. Yes. But I did actually find out how much she made from the syndication of the Golden Girls.

Oh. From reruns from the end of the show through the next about 30 years. Yeah. She made in the neighborhood of two to 3 million a year on syndication. Wow. And so there're, uh, that's good. Upwards of 80 million that she possibly made on Golden Girls

[00:50:38] Michael: royalties. Wow. That's pretty good. All right. I love the number and I'm happy with it.

All right. Category six Simpson Saturday Night Live, or Halls of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons, as well as impersonations. Okay. Simpsons, she guest starred as herself in 2007. If you like, great p b s programs like Do shut up and Shut your Gob, you'll wanna support our pledge drive, pledge drive.

Ooh. If you watch even one second of p b s and don't contribute, you are a thief, a common thief. Uh, Saturday Night Live, this is the big one. Mm-hmm. The 2010 appearance. Oh my God. This, I Did you go back and watch any of this? I did, yes. Like the monologue is good and my favorite one is the Tina Face Kit.

Where she's the old lady census. Yes. Hello, ma'am. I am a census taker with the US Census Bureau. Oh, terrific. Good for you. Bye. Oh, no wait, sorry. Hang on. Um, you never returned your 2010 census form, so if I could just ask you a few questions. Absolutely dear. What is your last name, ma'am? Lagar. Can you spell that for me?

S m i t h. And that's pronounced. God. God, that's like my kind of humor. That's just one of those skits that fucking kills me. I watched it three times. She had been asked several times before to guest and And said no. Three. Yeah, three times before. Yeah. And she wouldn't do it until there was a Facebook campaign.

One of the things she says, didn't know what Facebook was, but my god, what a waste of time.

[00:52:15] Amit: It's the power of social media

[00:52:16] Michael: mobs. Right? Oh good. Yeah. But this for once doing something right does of course have a Hollywood star. No surprise there. Got it. In 1988 and I even saw that she was apparently on Arsenio, at least according to I M D B.

Oh, I would believe it. That's Prime Golden Girls time. I guess that's right. I couldn't find the actual clip of her appearing. I did see the clip of B Arthur appearing also cast member of the Golden Girls. So I made the case that Bowie was the most famous figure we had had, uh, on Famous and Gravy. You can make a case for Betty White.

[00:52:49] Amit: Ah, no. Too exclusively American. You think so? Yes.

[00:52:53] Michael: Oh, that's fair. I was gonna say like, she probably is throughout the west, but not through like, you know, internationally and like, I don't even know all

[00:52:59] Amit: the west, I don't even know if Europe accounts Yeah. She's a television lady. Yeah. Right. She's not a film lady.

Yeah. Film television doesn't reach as much beyond the borders. Yeah. This is, maybe now it does a little more, but um, that's a good

[00:53:11] Michael: point. That's a good point. And, and, and, and our love of her is like she's an American institution. Yeah.

[00:53:16] Amit: But by our American measures of fame, she, she hits all cylinders. Yeah.

And I think, um, this is like, like what Jennifer pointed out and she was hitting 'em in the fifties. Yeah. In the sixties and the seventies and the eighties and maybe a little quiet through the late nineties and,

[00:53:30] Michael: and early two thousands coming back again, not an accent. I mean, she's even appearing on talk shows during that time.

It's not like she went away. Anything else you wanted to mention? I mean, there's, you could go on at I, I would say this, she was Norm McDonald like as well in terms of the YouTube rabbit hole. Like the minute I started. So I read the books, but then I started watching Betty White, like super cuts or whatever and I couldn't fucking watch these all day.

They are hilarious. There's so much funny shit out there that she did and it like I could have kept on researching this episode for clips like

[00:54:01] Amit: Addin fan. Yeah, she's funny. Like the one joke that she always told. What is the one thing you regret not doing in show business? Robert Redford.

[00:54:09] Michael: I didn't see, I did see that.

You know what I heard? I think it was like on a Bill Hader interview. She was the one who brought that joke. Many of you know that I'm 88 and a half years old. So like she apparently brought that, they're like, you were 88 and she'd say 88 and a half. Like I love that half. So

[00:54:26] Amit: that's perfect for us to round out the accolades in the record.

So she was the oldest host ever to be on s n l? Correct. She holds the Guinness World Record for the longest television career. Yes. Uh, has over 20 Emmys. Um, this is Tom Brady Tar. Sorry, it's a very hard to, tons of things mention Nick. Probably one of the more obscure ones is she has a Grammy, oh, first spoken word album for reading her 2012 autobiography if you ask me, and of course you won't.

[00:54:53] Michael: Well, we could go on and on about the pop culture appearances. I think we're gonna have to move on. Very famous lady. But I, good point about American fame. Category seven over under. In this category, we look at the generalized life expectancy for the year somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds.

And as a measure of grace, the life expectancy for a woman born in the United States in 1922 was 61 years old. She lived to 99. 39 years over. This is a record on our show for women, but it does not beat Judge Joe Watner or Bob Dole in terms of how many years past the life experience. Oh, okay. Got it. 39 years over.

You're not

[00:55:31] Amit: talking absolute. So I don't think we should, we should dwell on grace. Cause I think it's so obvious fucking, but I do wanna bring up something as it deals with. Aging. Uh, and Betty White. Okay. Uh, so she was the oldest of all the golden girls. Yeah. In terms of her actual age. Right. And this is what shocked me most is in their scripts.

She was supposed to be like 56 years old. Yeah, I saw that. And Blanche was supposed to be like 53.

[00:55:56] Michael: This is one way in which the Golden Girls was not particularly evolved.

[00:55:59] Amit: But this is the one ways in which television and the eighties and nineties, just like horribly portrayed age. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't like that.

Like I, I, I take issue with that and I, I

[00:56:09] Michael: wish I didn't know that. I wish it weren't true. I don't think it actually affects that much. How you go back and rewatch the show. And the show is still funny.

[00:56:16] Amit: I don't think it does, but I think this is an important point because I think it really does affect, uh, how our perception of age.

Our perception of age. Yeah. Of age coming on quickly. Yes. And youth or the, the fun of life quickly

[00:56:29] Michael: eroding. Very good point. I a hundred percent agree. Yeah. I couldn't agree more that like heartedly worth commenting on, about as graceful as they come. Let's pause for another break. Christopher Walen alive.

The rules

[00:56:43] Amit: are simple.

[00:56:44] Michael: Dead or alive, correct. 79. He's getting up there as of this recording. Tony Bennett alive, correct? Yes. I know because like he's kind of on the death watch list. 96. Uh, edit James dead. Correction. We lost her in 2012. What? What did I get about half of those right now. You got five outta seven.

That's okay. Thank you for playing. All right, thanks. Test your knowledge dead or live app.com. Okay. Category eight, the first of the introspective questions where we ask what would it have been like to have been this person, but first of these is Man in the Mirror. What did they think about their own reflection?

I've got a lot of here. Do you? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Maybe I'll just say what I'm, I'll say and I'll let you take it then. Okay. I think she loved it. I also think Sue Anne Nivens, the Mary Tyler Moore character is kind of fun to watch because I think that there's a different look on her in those years. I think it's, it's the most she ever, I saw her like act.

Sue Mavens has this like mischievous smile, this like look in the eye of like, you know, yes, I'm the happy homemaker, but it's so like two-faced. I mean, she describes her as a bitch behind the scenes. Yes. Um, I don't think you can have that kind of fun with that character and the knowledge of how you are perceived by the public without having a reasonably confident man in the mirror reaction.

Okay. So that's my case for why she loved it.

[00:58:12] Amit: Okay. Mine is complex. You've gotta bear with me. Okay. The answer is no, I don't think she liked it. And I'm gonna start with the end and then go back to the beginning. Okay. So she actually said in, uh, her autobiography that when things are going really well and she's, you know, has reasons to be really high on herself, she looks in the mirror to ground herself and say, you are lucky.

You should be thankful for everything you have. Yes. So what that means, she's interesting. Yeah. She looks in the mirror and the mirror is, is the grounding. Yeah. Right. The mirror is you are normal. Like you are not exceptional. And that is not to say she dislikes her reflection in the mirror. Yeah. But if we're taking a, does she love.

Or not, I'm gonna go No, because of that, it is her grounding space. It is saying, look at you. Look at me. Be so thankful that I am just a normal, plain person that got all of this.

[00:59:04] Michael: That's so interesting. Yes. I have, I have something to say on this in the future category, but I'm with you so far

and

[00:59:09] Amit: I'm gonna ta I'm gonna take it back.

And so this is th this is a twist on how we normally do it because I do not think it is negative self-perception. Yeah. It is specifically how, what her reflection means to her. So this isn't about

[00:59:21] Michael: self-judgment, this is about. Self interpretation. Sure. Yep. Fair enough. That man in the mirror is partly a reflection of who and how you're comparing yourself.

[00:59:31] Amit: Yes, it is. It is her foundation for

[00:59:33] Michael: gratitude. Yeah. I'm sticking with my answer, but I really like the case you made and I, I wanna return to it in a later point. Okay. Okay. Category nine, outgoing message like, man in the mirror, how do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine?

Also, would they have used it for the outgoing message? Would they require it themselves or use the default setting? I think she loved it because of the timing issue. I think that she liked her voice and I think that she was patient with it. I'm going with the simple, she loved it. I think also, you know, it's not always true with singers, but I do think she enjoyed singing.

She also just used it well. So I didn't think too much about this

[01:00:12] Amit: one. I agree. Um, there's not a lot to talk about. I was surprised that her speaking voice and her acting voice are the same. Someone was

[01:00:20] Michael: actually able to deceive me once. Do tell Rose Saint All's most famous O B M A G. What's that?

Obstetrician magician.

The amazing Shapiro. He delivered Bridget, but it was so confusing. It's a girl now. It's a dove. Now it's a glass of milk. I don't know how he got her in that deck of cards, but there she was right after the king of hearts. Is this your baby? And we also agree that she probably would've left it on an answer machine, correct?

I agree. All right. Category 10 Regrets. Public or private? What we really want to know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night? I think you probably have more here than I do. I've got one public. I. And I got nothing for private. Okay. So the public regret that comes out is that she did not marry her third husband, Alan, sooner.

She says this in several interviews that he started saying, will you marry me? Will you marry me? Almost immediately what she says is, I wish I had said yes earlier. We would've had another year together. Mm-hmm. You know, I think that you could speculate on some others, but I didn't go too far with this one.

I'm very curious to hear what you have to say.

[01:01:39] Amit: Um, yeah, so I, I think what's important before all of this is, is the emphasis on gratitude. Yeah. And I think if you're somebody that overflows with gratitude, regret doesn't really play into your

[01:01:49] Michael: life. Yeah. Cuz in your image, that's the whole thing with gratitude, right?

Is like, are you acknowledging the things? Actually, can I say one more word about that because I didn't say this earlier when I was just getting started on the research for this episode, I had had a pretty shitty few days. Like, not in any, for any specific reason, I was just caught up in self-pity, caught up in like worrying about, I don't know, money, health, weight, you know, all the, all the bullshit of life, right?

And, and I couldn't quite break myself outta that cycle. I wanted to be in a state of gratitude and I started reading her book and she just leads with it. And I was like, oh, right. So much of it is about a question of what am I paying attention to? Am I paying attention to the things I have or the things I don't have and regret?

It's fundamentally about paying attention to the things you don't have. Gratitude is about acknowledging look at what I've been given, you know, where wherever it comes from and however it got here. That's part of the reason that one's so damn important to me. So, and maybe part of the reason I didn't have a whole lot to say in terms of regrets here, so I like that you led with that.

Let's acknowledge the gratitude. So that caveat, where did you go? Yes.

[01:02:55] Amit: I think there's truth to that and that's why I brought it up in my malkovich because I say maybe there's not regret, but is there anger? Yeah. So the regrets that I speculate, she passed up the Today Show. Yes. Uh, which was given to Barbara Walters because New York was too cold.

[01:03:09] Michael: Yeah. But she also sounded like didn't want to be because she had been on TV every fucking day for several years there in the early fifties. And it sounded like she'd just didn't want that grind. Yes. Anymore. I mean, she'd kind of done that and didn't see, but I did see that. Yeah.

[01:03:23] Amit: Yeah. Uh, there is the curse of naming things.

The Betty White Show. Yes. There was, every time she named something, something, the Betty White Show, it became, it tanked after the first one. She never did. Well, yeah. Third, they, they did this weird spinoff of The Golden Girls after B Arthur left, cuz she didn't want to do it anymore. That's right. Called Golden Palace, which was no good and canceled

[01:03:41] Michael: after one season.

That's a pretty good regret. It sound like, I mean, I saw one of her biographies say, you know, I never regretted saying yes to a TV show. Um, but it did sound like some of 'em went better than others. So that's, I think that's fair.

[01:03:53] Amit: Yeah. Other than that, really hard to guess. Yeah, really hard to get inside and see if there are others.

And like we said at the top of it, maybe there weren't.

[01:04:00] Michael: Yeah. Okay. Category 11, good dreams, bad dreams. This is not about personal perception, but rather does this person have a haunted look in the eye? Something that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, or unresolved trauma. I have something to say here.

Okay. Okay. I went good, but one question I have, and this is about Betty White to some extent, certainly about the nature of fame more broadly. I mean her life all but brackets, the history of television. She sees one of the very first TV cameras of all time, and maybe TV will exist five, 10 years from now.

But really tv, you know, in terms of live events, that's the only thing I, I tune in for anymore, for like broadcast television, it's something live, it's on the news or sports. I wonder if my children will even use the word television in a way that I recognize, you know, the speculation I have here is did she ever feel that being on TV disconnected her from reality in some way?

That it's not exactly the Truman show, although it's sort of like the Truman Show. It's hard to come up with somebody who's been on television more than Betty White. Yes. Right. I mean, so the, the cameras are running all the time. There was something about Betty White that got me thinking, how much does this fuck with your head inside?

Mm-hmm. The, the experience of being on tv. She doesn't look corrupted by it, as other people might in terms of it, you know, creating this really odd and, and problematic war with your ego in terms of self-perception and who am I? How am I being watched? Where does the boundary for my private self begin and end?

What is the authentic me again, I see good dreams here on it. But I just wondered about this. Yeah.

[01:05:45] Amit: So my answer similar, I see good dreams, but I, I'm very curious about something that is very related to what you said and the story that I want to use to support it. Was her relationship with Be Arthur. Mm. I think ultimately they were friends, but they had a lot of feuds.

There were some Amos Yeah.

[01:06:00] Michael: I saw some of

[01:06:00] Amit: this too. And a lot of Be Arthur and Golden Girls. Yes. Um, and a lot of it as Betty White explains is she just didn't like how positive I was. Yeah. So apparently like as they broke for, um, in between, in between Takes be Arthur would stay in character, um, and Betty White would go and like, joke around with the audience Yeah.

And be all happy-go-lucky. And, um, BI Arthur got, got quite pissed that she was like, too positive and too Forgive the button. Too rosy. Yeah. All the time. And it really, it really graded on her. Cause it's hard for us to believe that somebody can be that positive. We find those people disingenuous because we don't, we don't think that's the human condition.

Oh. Cause if human condition has. Oh, that's interesting. It has anger. Yeah, it has anger and it has range, yeah. Of emotion.

[01:06:46] Michael: Very fair. I'm suspicious initially of somebody that positive. I don't know if I find it disingenuous, but I approach that

[01:06:51] Amit: with suspicion. If you live in a world of extreme positivity, does it come out there in the dreams, is my question.

Hmm. And that's the case against, though I would generally go Good dreams for her. Yeah. I mean, I would like to believe that in this world, in the universe, that, that it doesn't need to with enough gratitude, right? That that's enough. There are outlets, you know, there's creative outlets, there's exercise, there's things like that, that are not destructive, are not painful in which that comes out.

I would like to believe that's possible.

[01:07:23] Michael: All right. Category 12? Yeah, category 12. Cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. This may be a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them.

We are most curious about, I had a pretty simple answer here. Margaritas. Margaritas. Yeah. I, so there's a little bit of a Norm McDonald thing, you know, norm McDonald, I wanted to hang in a backyard with a cooler of like cheap, shitty beer and just drink all day. Yes, I want to get bombed on margaritas with Betty White.

I just want to hang out. There's a Letterman appearance where it's like, what do you do for fun? She's like, oh, I like to do most anything, play with animals mostly. And, uh, vodka's kind of a hobby. And

wherever this positive energy is coming from, I want to be around it. I want to. Ride those waves and I could hang out with this lady all day, even after preparing for this episode. I'm not done with my YouTube rabbit hole. Yeah, it's that simple. I don't have that much residual curiosity. I mean, I guess if there is anything I want to know, maybe it is that question of like, were you just born this way?

Uh, like how did, how did you get here? I mean, she does certainly talk about being loved by two parents. She's like, they were two wonderful people. She's an only child, a lot of animals in the house, and her parents were like crazy supportive. So, I don't know, maybe it's like good circumstances, good upbringing and good fortune and good luck, and she's self-aware enough to recognize all that.

Basically, I just want to Hang on. Drink

[01:08:57] Amit: margaritas. Okay. So I was tempted to go cannabis, but then I kind of realized is that we kind of got so much Betty White and I think we sort of got her high meaning like we were with her when she was high. Yeah. Meaning she was over 90. Yeah. And like, just funny stuff was coming out and I think we were getting access into layers of Betty White that weren't coming out before.

Yeah. So access is not a curiosity for me. I want the same hangout. I'm gonna honor her and it's gonna be vodka martinis. Yeah. Not margaritas. I almost went there. Uh, but it's not the same hangout session that you want. I want a lesson in gratitude from her, but I still want it over vodka. Uh, how to have it, how to embrace it, how to keep it, how to nurture it.

But it's gonna be a funny one too, because she's quick-witted and I think especially after the second martini, it's gonna be a gooky one. So it's just she's she's, she's gonna be my fun therapist.

[01:09:45] Michael: You ordered the vodka martinis. We're gonna start off with margaritas at sunset. Okay. In a TexMex restaurant.

Okay, we've arrived. Our final category, the VanDerBeek, named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said In Varsity Blues, I don't want your life Ahed. Mm-hmm. Where to start here. I came into this with like, I don't know how, I'm not gonna, yes, the Vander Peak here, like that list of five things that we started off with.

If those were my five life goals, man, that's pretty goddamn damn good and she achieved them all. And those over the course of a hundred years, certainly you could ask some questions about the home life. Not just the no kids, I don't think, I don't see that she felt some great void when it came to children, and I, I love that about her.

I don't exactly see a void when it comes to companionship, but you're right, in the grand scheme of things, 18 years with the love of her life is pretty short. And her loving energies are obviously being like poured elsewhere. And for me, the thing that's so goddamn important about gratitude and all this is the more you're giving away, the more gratitude is an action word.

The more you're expressing, like, thank you all for being here and let, what can I do to make you feel better? To make the situation feel better, to give of myself, to give back what I've been given. The more you do that in life, the more accommodation space you create in your heart to have it flow right back in.

Mm-hmm. That is so fucking life affirming to me that there's little bits and pieces along the way that I could poke at where I could say maybe not, but I'm a pretty fucking emphatic Yes. I want your life. Betty White. So I'm a yes. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't jump to that before talking it out.

What do you got? I mean, what's the, what's the case against, uh, the

[01:11:31] Amit: case against, for me is range, range of emotion that she expressed. And so when we talked about that in love and marriage, and I said, you know, I'm a little concerned that she held that close to her, whatever was in her in those last 40 years of life as far as desiring romantically

[01:11:47] Michael: range, that those emotions aren't being felt or explored.

I don't quite understand, uh, explored. Expressed.

[01:11:52] Amit: Okay. Yeah. I mean, so much gratitude. Yeah. Is what I'm saying is there, is there such a thing as too much gratitude? And that's where I question

[01:11:59] Michael: it. So that's the case against, yeah. Okay. Because

[01:12:02] Amit: is it real? That's, that's what you have to have. That's what I wonder about.

Well, and maybe that's my own experience with just a, a. Decades of, of, you know, a lot of, um, cynicism and skepticism. But I would say, you know, reasonably healthy cynicism and skepticism, reasonably happy cynicism and skepticism. Um, but that's still, that's where that comes from is I find it hard to believe that somebody can be so grateful and so positive and so happy, so much.

And, uh, it

[01:12:33] Michael: just So you questioned the authenticity on some level.

[01:12:36] Amit: Yeah. I questioned the depth, the level of work and the self knowledge. Is that, is, is, did you find your true self? Yeah. But where I'm landing is you don't have to, you know? Yeah. And I'm not saying she didn't, because I think she did just by sheer lifespan.

Right. And I think that was her exploration. Yeah. I think by living as much as she did, through so many comebacks and so many eras,

[01:13:01] Michael: so many iterations, so many different

[01:13:03] Amit: experiences, I think that was her self knowledge. It was through life. Yeah. And so, so much of me wants to disbelieve the authenticity, but I'm gonna do it for her.

I'm gonna believe it because I wanna believe it. And maybe that's a shift that I'm just making days, that I, I'm gonna believe that it's possible that not everyone has, you know, the skepticism and the vinegar in them. And I'm gonna grant that to Betty White as a model for it. And, uh, if that is a choice, if that is a real choice available to somebody, then hell yeah.

I want it. I want your life. Betty White.

[01:13:40] Michael: Great answer, dude. 50 episodes. It is a great honor to be doing it with you. Thank you. You wanna take us out? Yeah. Okay. Amit, you are Betty White. You have died. You have ascended to meet St. Peter, the Unitarian proxy for the afterlife. You're at the Parley gates. The floor is yours to make your pitch.

What is your great contribution to the stream of

[01:14:07] Amit: life? I'm told that once I pass through my beloved husband to Alan is there waiting for me. So I have to get through. And my reason is thank you. Thank you, God. Thank you universe. Thank you for everything that I got to do from the very beginning of television to these last few years of being an internet sensation, whatever that even means.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. Let me in.

[01:14:45] Michael: Thank you so much again to Jennifer Keesen Armstrong for joining us on this episode. Her most recent book is called When Women Invented Television. We'll be linking to all her work in the show notes. Check it out. Before you leave Famous and Gravy listeners, I have a request. If you are interested in participating in our opening quiz where we reveal the dead celebrity, then send us an email.

You can reach us at hello@famousandgravy.com. Usually takes just a few minutes to record and we love hearing from you. Thank you all for listening to this episode. If you're enjoying our show and you don't feel like emailing us, then please tell your friends about us. You can find us on Twitter. Our handle is at Famous En Gravy.

We also have a newsletter, which you can sign up for on our website, famous en gravy.com. Famous en Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thank you for listening. Tell your friends. See you next time.