If You Ask Me

by Betty White

  LESTER COHEN/WIREIMAGE

  HOT IN CLEVELAND

  Sixty-three years in this business and I still find it difficult to refuse a job offer. That could be a hangover from the early days when jobs were hard to come by and I always thought each one might be my last.

  I do manage to utter the “NO” word if the schedule is on overload or if the script doesn’t appeal to me—the latter being the real issue.

  Not long ago, I agreed to do a guest stint on a new pilot, and I insisted on the proviso that I would not be involved if it got picked as a series. It was to be a one-shot only, because my schedule was packed.

  The pilot was called Hot in Cleveland, starring Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick, and Jane Leeves. Now, it can often take months to learn the fate of a pilot, but after only three weeks the show got an order for ten more episodes from TV Land network. It was the first original scripted show TV Land had ever done—they were best known for rebroadcasting many of the old classics.

  When the producers asked me if I would do a couple of additional episodes, I reminded them of our agreement and reluctantly explained that my calendar was just too full, but thank you so much.

  Of course, I wound up doing all ten shows! Actually, the pilot had been a delightful experience. The girls were a joy, the writing was fun, and it had been a very happy set. What’s to walk away from?

  The TV Land folk were very pleased at the warm public response to the show. So pleased that as we finished the tenth show, I got a call from my agent, Jeff Witjas.

  “Betty,” he said. “Great news! They’ve picked up Hot in Cleveland for twenty more shows!”

  I remember holding the phone for a moment. Then I said, “No, Jeff, that wasn’t the agreement. My schedule hasn’t let up. I don’t know how I could possibly do it!” Here I should mention that the taping schedule for a television series is four or five days a week, requiring me to be on set sometimes for ten hours a day! “Much as I love the show and the company, I’m still on overload,” I told Jeff. “There’s no room whatsoever to work in a series!”

  P.S. Guess who signed on for all twenty episodes?

  I have the backbone of a jellyfish.

  I’d say I was a pushover if I wasn’t so delighted.

  And that was before the show received two SAG nominations and was rated the number-one television show on cable. [Editor’s Note: Sorry to be a ratings-dropper.]

  What absolutely boggles my mind is that I find myself in yet another hit series, having a ball with a wonderful cast and crew. One of those in a lifetime is a blessing, two of them is a privilege, but three out of three?

  I owe Someone, big time.

  With Larry Jones, president of TV Land.

  D DIPASUPIL/FILMMAGIC.COM

  Hosting Saturday Night Live.

  NBCU PHOTO BANK

  SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

  Between doing a Snickers commercial to be run during the Super Bowl, hosting Saturday Night Live, and starting a new series, Hot in Cleveland, 2010 turned out to be, as they say, a very good year. As a result, people keep congratulating me on my big “comeback” or “resurgence.” Thanks, guys, but I haven’t really been away—I’ve been working steadily for the past sixty-three years. Granted, since those gigs, some folks may feel they’ve gotten something of a Betty White overdose.

  It was a huge and wonderful surprise when the Snickers commercial turned up as the first spot on the Super Bowl. We didn’t expect that when we filmed it one early, cold California morning. The idea was, I was playing football with a group of nice young men. (Tough duty!) It wound up with me being tackled into a pool of icy, muddy water. A great stuntwoman took the actual tackle, and I just lay down in the puddle in the same position where she had landed. She took the dive, but I got the laugh. Sure doesn’t seem fair, does it?

  At nearly the same time that the Snickers ad was making waves, I was hit with another surprise. Years ago, I had turned down the hosting job on Saturday Night Live—three times! I feared that this Californian would be like a fish out of water on such a New York–oriented show. I said “No, thank you,” and never gave it another thought.

  All these years later, seemingly out of left field, in January 2010 there was a campaign on Facebook called “Betty White to Host SNL (Please),” started by a young man named David Matthews. By March, apparently almost half a million people had voted! And that’s when Jeff Witjas came to me with the hosting offer from SNL producer Lorne Michaels.

  My reservations hadn’t changed a whit, but Jeff, who is not only a dear friend but has judgment far better than my own, would not take no for an answer. He insisted I had to do it. Over my strong (and desperate) objections, off we went to New York.

  With the great ladies of Saturday Night Live.

  NBCU PHOTO BANK

  It was a terrifying proposition from the word “go,” but Lorne Michaels brought in the wonderful Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, Molly Shannon, and Amy Poehler (at the time, as pregnant as you can get) for the show, and they could not have been more supportive or more fun to work with. Ditto Lorne Michaels.

  At the start of the rehearsal week, there are maybe forty or more sketches in the mix. These gradually narrow down to the five or six that make the cut by show-time on Saturday.

  Normally, I memorize my lines. But with forty-plus sketches to weed out, that was impossible, and I was told we’d be using cue cards (anathema to me). That only added to the panic.

  In fact, I think that scared me more about SNL than anything else, because I don’t use cue cards and I don’t use teleprompters. (Maybe for a commercial, which is a whole two pages long. Then the teleprompter is wonderful, because you look right into the lens.) But cue cards I hate, because it usually means your eye switches as you look from the camera lens to the card, lens to the card.

  More scenes from Saturday Night Live.

  Note the costume changes!

  NBCU PHOTO BANK

  So when it came to Saturday Night Live, I thought, How am I going to do that?

  Well, they have this wonderful card man who knew my reservations. He stood a little above and behind her with the cards, and said, “Keep your eyes on me and the cards. Don’t look at Tina Fey.”

  I’m thinking, How can you play a scene with Tina Fey and not look at Tina Fey?

  “Don’t look at Tina and your eyes won’t move and you’ll be fine. And she’s doing the same thing,” he said. “Trust me.” I did, and it made all the difference.

  If you watch the show, you’ll see that even some of the most accomplished actors around have that eye switch that is just so distracting. And these are stellar actors!

  But the cue cards were just one part of the elaborate production that is SNL.

  The week before, you fly into New York and go to the studio, and you sit around the table with all the cast and read forty-one sketches. You’ve not seen a script—this is your first look at the material. Everybody reads their parts, and as you go through them, some are naturally weeded out because they’re just not working. Then Lorne Michaels does his edit and weeds more out. Maybe twenty make the blocking stage.

  More scenes from Saturday Night Live.

  Note the costume changes!

  NBCU PHOTO BANK

  I was so nervous, but Lorne brought Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and all those wonderful gals to read with me, and they couldn’t have been more supportive. Soon, of course, we began having fun. (At the time, Amy was so pregnant she could hardly fit in the sketch. She has since had a beautiful baby boy. Now when I see her I say, “Have you lost weight?”)

  As the week progresses, so does the weeding. By the day of the show, it has been whittled down to five or six sketches!

  That day, you run through the show two times—in full costume. But it’s more than a dress rehearsal, it’s the real show, twice.

  The challenge for me, besides the cue cards, involved the complete costume changes for each sketch, which must be done in one minute, thirty second
s. Saturday Night Live, indeed!

  They have been doing this long enough to have it all down to a system, so the only thing one can do to help is to do absolutely nothing. As a sketch ends, someone grabs your hand and drags you offstage into a very small closet nearby. You are literally attacked as someone strips off your clothes and stuffs you into new ones while someone else is touching up your makeup and yet someone else is removing your wig and pinning on a new one. (Ouch!) Your hand is grabbed again to drag you back onstage, too frazzled to remember what the next sketch is until you get back to those blessed cue cards.

  Jeff, who was standing just offstage, says all I did was glare at him as I flew by. “I didn’t know you could look that fierce,” he told me.

  The day after the show aired, on the flight back to Los Angeles, I had to admit it had been an exciting and incomparable experience.

  “Thank you, Jeff. It wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for you,” I said.

  Jeff replied, “Well, it’s about time!!!”

  And as chance would have it, Saturday Night Live brought me my seventh Emmy Award. The day it was announced, Jeff called, wanting to know, Didn’t I think he deserved the Emmy?

  Truth be told, he absolutely should have accepted the award.

  With my castmates from The Mary Tyler Moore Show—

  Ed Asner, Mary Tyler Moore, and Ted Knight.

  The show won twenty-nine Emmys.

  © BETTMANN/CORBIS

  AWARDS

  I know it sounds like a cliché, and I’ve discussed it in my interviews and other books, but it’s the truth—I truly believe a nomination in and of itself is the greatest honor one can receive for one’s work.

  When you’re nominated, you get it all sorted out in your mind—not who’s going to win, but that you yourself are not. And that’s not being coy—that’s being realistic.

  At the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2011, I was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series, and the actors with whom I was nominated were simply extraordinary—Tina Fey of 30 Rock, Jane Lynch of Glee, Edie Falco of Nurse Jackie, Sofía Vergara of Modern Family, and me for Hot in Cleveland. When I saw the competition, it took all the nervousness away. I thought, This is great, but I’m never going to win!

  So when my name was announced, I was simply stunned. I’d nearly forgotten I was nominated. And if you think I was in shock, you should have seen Jeff Witjas. He looked at me, and the color just drained from his face. Meanwhile, the girls from Hot in Cleveland were jumping up and down with excitement—they were, if possible, more delighted than I was!

  As with the instances when I’ve won previous awards, it all happened so fast. There’s always a striking and sudden contrast: one minute, you’re sitting at the table, wherever that may be, and the next you’re onstage. You’ve been sitting in the audience long enough that you know your environment around your table, you know who’s seated nearby, but you get up those steps and turn around, and suddenly you see the whole overview of the audience. And that’s overwhelming, because you haven’t thought of all those people in that great big auditorium. You’ve thought only about the tables nearby.

  When you turn around, the impact of what you see scares anything out of your head that was ever there!

  I’ve never, in all the instances I’ve been nominated for an award, prepared a speech. I’ve known whom I would thank, but I’ve never actually written a speech. And this occasion was no different. And as in times past, I opened my mouth and words came, and God knows what they were. But it is such an exciting feeling.

  When I picked up the SAG statue itself, which presenter Jon Hamm had left on the podium for me, it felt like it weighed twenty-five pounds. All I could think about was that it was the heaviest award I’d ever held.

  Allen’s always there when I win an award, or when anything special happens, because nobody would celebrate it like he did. So he was right up there with me.

  Ever wonder what happens to an actor after they accept an award and leave the stage?

  After you win, someone escorts you backstage to a room filled with press. They all ask you questions and take photos. Then, if it’s early enough in the program—which it was, at the SAGs—they’ll take you back to the table. That was great, because the girls were just so excited. I think Valerie was still jumping up and down, bless her.

  We had also been nominated for the show itself, for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. That was the one I wish we had won rather than the individual, but my castmates didn’t seem to care one bit.

  My beloved castmates couldn’t have celebrated more.

  Actors tend to take the bows for their performances and forget to share the credit with those who put the words on the page. Where would we be without them? To be blessed with good writing is such a privilege, and I have been so lucky. Shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls have lasted over time thanks to some of the best writing in the business, and I am ever grateful.

  The morning after the SAG Awards, we had a table read for Hot in Cleveland. Suzanne Martin, the creator of the show, who does a lot of the writing, walked in and said, “Welcome to the award-winning Hot in Cleveland !”

  It was a great moment.

  Completely stunned at the 2011 Screen Actors Guild Awards!

  KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES

  NAME-DROPPING

  At the 2010 SAG Awards, I was honored with the Life Achievement Award.

  I got up from the table, and once again I had that moment of sudden contrast—when I got up to the podium, I turned around, and here’s this enormous Shrine Auditorium audience. It’s just overwhelming.

  When I gained my composure, I tried to explain that being in show business is like living in a small town.

  Your paths really cross and cross again through the years.

  Even if you’ve not seen someone in a long time, all of a sudden you’re working with him or her again.

  I talked about how two show-business people who encounter each other might not know each other, but they’re automatically in the same club, and they greet each other like friends.

  And I talked about how I’ve never gotten used to running across a celebrity. I’m always impressed. I’ve never outgrown it. I still remember the thrill I had the day I came home and there was a message that Fred Astaire had called. Fred Astaire!

  So I said to the audience ...

  “I look out here and everybody is famous. And I’ve had the privilege of knowing many of you and working with some of you—I’ve even had a few of you! You know who you are.”

  Afterward, as I was led back to my table, George Clooney was at the podium. He saw me walking across the room and said, “And while I’m here, I’d like to thank Betty White for her discretion.”

  At the 2010 Screen Actors Guild Awards. My friend Sandra Bullock presented me with the Life Achievement Award.

  KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES

  TURNING DOWN ROLES

  I’m often asked if there are roles I was offered that I regret turning down.

  The answer is No.

  Sure, I’ve turned down parts in movies that went on to be successful.

  One was As Good as It Gets.

  But in that movie, there was a scene in which a character throws a dog down a laundry chute. When I read the part, I told the director, James Brooks, who is amazingly talented, “I just can’t do that!” I know it’s for laughs, but given my feelings about animals and my work for animal welfare, I just didn’t find it funny. I didn’t think it would be a good example to people who might try it in real life.

  I was hoping that Jim would change it! But Jim had fallen in love with the scene and wouldn’t change it. So I said, “Sorry, I can’t do it. But thank you very much!”

  Another script was sent to me, and it started with a truly disgusting scene in which a drunken Santa Claus is vomiting all over a stack of toys. I didn’t find that funny, either. The scriptwriters were these rea
lly talented guys, but I said, “Thank you but no thanks!”

  So the answer is, more than regretting not taking a role, I feel good that I’ve turned down roles for the right reasons.

  With Leslie Nielsen in Chance of a Lifetime.

  PHOTO BY ALICE S. HALL/MPTVIMAGES.COM

  OLD FRIENDS, NEW STORIES

  It’s always a joy to know your castmates.

  I’ve known Carl Reiner for years. Lately, he’s been appearing on Hot in Cleveland as a guest star in a recurring role—my character’s boyfriend, no less.

  Carl Reiner and Allen were in the Army together in World War II in the Pacific. I met Carl one night years later, when Allen had all the guys from his outfit over to our house. There was Mort Lindsey and Howie Morris and Harry David and Carl. No wives were invited. So I fixed a couple of big casseroles for the fellas and took the dogs upstairs to the bedroom. I wasn’t allowed downstairs—it was one of those guys’ nights out.

  Carl recently told me, “I wouldn’t have a career without Captain Ludden.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, and said so.

  Carl told me about this entertainment group Allen was in, called the Army Entertainment Section. Carl had written some material and stood up one night in front of the guys and read it.

  Allen said, “You’ve got to do more of that.”

  Maurice Evans was also in the outfit, so Allen got Maurice to take the material to a producer, and Carl was off and running. He continued to be a writer but also went on to become one of our great comedians. It took a Shakespearean actor and a game-show host to make it happen in the beginning, but Carl took it from there.

  Today, every so often, Carl will say to me, “Wouldn’t Allen get a kick out of this if he were here—seeing us working together?”