If You Ask Me

by Betty White

  Al Jarvis had seen me on that, and he called and asked if I would be his Girl Friday on a TV show he was going to do. Al had had a marathon radio show, and now he was going to be on for five hours, five days a week. They soon upped it to five and a half hours a day and added Saturday. That was Hollywood on Television. I’d been getting paid $5 by the local station.

  When Al called, I thought, Maybe I’ll get another $5!

  Instead, Al offered me $50 a week! I was shocked. Even more so when they gave me $200 per week when they extended the airtime.

  For two and a half years we worked together on that program. And then, Al went over to ABC, and I inherited H.O.T.

  You talk about experience—it was like going to television college.

  One of the things I realized from the first time I ever did television was the intimacy of the audience. There are never more than two or three people watching a television program—if there are more than three people in a room, they’re usually talking among themselves, not listening to you! So as a television actress, I knew my audience was always very narrow. Later, when I did movie roles, however, it was for this great big audience. And I didn’t know that audience’s content at all. You don’t have that feeling of reaching an individual. And you don’t look at the camera!

  No matter how television has grown, you’re still really just talking to those two or three people.

  People greet me on the street as a friend, not a celebrity. “Hi, Betty!”

  I was walking down the street the last time I was in New York, and a guy drove by and rolled down his window and hollered, “I love Hot in Cleveland, Betty!” Had I been a film star, he wouldn’t have done that.

  There’s a remoteness to film stars. As an accessible television performer, you have to be careful walking down the street—you might pick up a hundred new best friends. It’s so unlike film stars, it’s a different genetic makeup.

  Television and I discovered each other together. It was a very short window to get in, timing-wise.

  I was blessed with that timing, because we were inventing as we went along in those first days of television. And I joined the parade.

  On Boston Legal with James Spader.

  RON TOM/© FOX/COURTESY: EVERETT COLLECTION

  LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

  Our wedding day—June 6, 1963.

  GLOBE PHOTOS

  FULL CIRCLE

  Life does have a way of coming full circle.

  As of this writing, I have just finished shooting a movie (You Again) starring three great gals—Jamie Lee Curtis, Kristen Bell, and Sigourney Weaver. I thoroughly enjoyed working with all three but got a special kick out of getting to know Sigourney. It was her father, Pat Weaver, who was at the time the president of NBC, where I got my first network job (The Betty White Show) more than half a century ago.

  After several years of doing local television, going “national” was a major turning point in my career, and it was a dream come true.

  At the time, I was working five and a half hours a day, six days a week, with Al Jarvis in a live broadcast. No script—all ad-libbed—on KLAC’s Channel Thirteen in the local Los Angeles area. The show was called Hollywood on Television.

  After two years, Al left and I inherited the show and worked solo for two and a half years. Every Thursday night I was also doing a one-hour variety show that was something like a small-scale American Idol (like they say, there’s nothing entirely “new” in this world!). It was all local. People would come on the Thursday-night show and sing, and whoever won the variety show, whoever got voted the best performer, would have a week appearing on our daytime show. Here I should mention that I would sing, too—and I don’t know how they could tell me from the amateurs!

  So after the five-and-a-half-hour daily broadcast on KLAC, we would hold auditions to screen the candidates for the variety show. They’d sing for us, and some you wouldn’t believe—you just didn’t know where to look. You’d think, This is the longest song that was ever sung! And you felt so sorry for these people. . .. But sometimes we’d get lucky. The most memorable winner was a young Gogi Grant, who went on to achieve a great career.

  On Hollywood on Television, we finally got music—a guitar player named Roc Hillman. I would sing three songs each day to his accompaniment.

  Then came Pat Weaver’s job offer, which was a godsend. Pat warned me what it would entail:

  “Do you think you can handle doing a half-hour show every day, five days a week?”

  Well, after five and a half hours a day, six days a week, I wondered what I would do with all the time off! I would also have a five-piece band, led by well-known music man Frank De Vol. Roc Hillman, of course, was still on guitar.

  Pat Weaver was a real mover and shaker in the television business, and many of his innovations are still extant today. It was Pat, I believe, who first divided television time into segments like on the Today show and The Tonight Show.

  Little did I dream that all these years later I would be working with his star of a daughter. Sigourney wasn’t even a gleam in her father’s eye at that time.

  Nice as he was, I was in total awe of Pat when I worked for him back then. I must admit, at first I felt a bit of the same when I started working with Sigourney, since I have been a devout fan of hers, especially her fine performance as Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist.

  I am delighted to say that we have grown into warm and loving friends. You can’t imagine how thrilled I was when I came offstage after Saturday Night Live to find her waiting to say hello in my dressing room. She and Victor Garber (also in You Again) had come over to surprise and support me. These are moments I absolutely cherish.

  But it doesn’t stop there.

  The day before the SAG Awards in 2011, I was at an event and a gentleman approached me and introduced himself. He said, “I’m Roc Hillman’s son! My dad’s still alive!”

  I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  He said, “No, he’s one hundred and four, and he’s still going!”

  Like I said, life sure does have a way of coming full circle.

  On the set of You Again with Sigourney Weaver, Odette Yustman, Kristen Bell, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

  ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM

  DATING DU JOUR

  At this moment in time, it seems somewhat current and choice for women to pair up with younger men. These gals are called “cougars.”

  Well, animal lover that I am, a cougar I am not. All my life, even as a kid, I have preferred men older than I am.

  Unfortunately, today I don’t think there is anyone older than I am!

  Even at this age, once in a while I meet a man who seems a trifle more interesting than usual. Nothing untoward—just someone who might be fun to know a little better. I’ve even thought (to myself) that it might be nice if he asked me to lunch or dinner, perhaps. Then reality kicks in and it cracks me up. This guy is probably a much younger man—maybe only eighty—and not about to even look my way.

  So I don’t worry very much about whether I’m going to be asked to lunch. I know I had a rare thing in my relationship with Allen. In fact, my castmates on Hot in Cleveland seemed so curious about him—and asked so many questions about him!—that I finally had to wonder out loud, “Why do you always ask me about Allen?”

  The answer was simple: “We love the look you get on your face when you talk about him.”

  ABC PHOTO ARCHIVES/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES

  LOSS

  Allen is always with me.

  The other night, a dear friend, Mark Alexander, called me to say he had seen the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie I did, The Lost Valentine.

  He said he was surprised to see me doing something dramatic.

  “At one point, when you were crying so hard, you glanced up and it stopped me cold. I knew who was in your mind.”

  I think the toughest thing about loss, and the hardest challenge, is the isolation you feel in its aftermath. You spent so much time sharing your life with someone, talk
ing through issues, even disagreeing about things, and all of a sudden there’s a hole. There’s nobody there and you think, Well, who’s in charge?

  My God, it’s me. I have to make the decisions. I can’t share the decisions any longer.

  And that’s tough because you don’t fully trust your own judgment.

  That’s why it’s great to have people like Jeff Witjas in my life. And why it was so great to have Jerry Martin, whom I lost just a few weeks ago. Jerry and I would talk to each other around dinnertime almost every night. I could get things off my chest that I couldn’t necessarily air to anyone else.

  The older you get, the fewer of those there are.

  I always thought I would be the one who would go—particularly with the Golden Girls, because I was the oldest. But then we lost all of them, and I’m the only one left and I’m still functioning. I think, How did that happen?

  MARIO ROMO/GLOBE PHOTOS

  On Mama’s Family with Vicki Lawrence and Rue McClanahan.

  NBCU PHOTO BANK

  FRIENDSHIPS

  There are all kinds of different friendships.

  With a new friend, you start to tell an anecdote and there’s a whole explanation that needs to go with it so they’ll understand.

  But with old friends, you don’t have to do the back-story, because you talk so often that they know what’s going on in your life—or maybe they were there at the time.

  Then there are the business friends—whose job it is to tell you where you’re wrong, whereas your other friends may just agree with you.

  Friendship takes time and energy if it’s going to work. You can luck into something great, but it doesn’t last if you don’t give it proper appreciation. Friendship can be so comfortable, but nurture it—don’t take it for granted.

  My closest friends have always been boys or men. As a kid, I wasn’t interested particularly in what the girls were talking about. I had to watch myself. I didn’t want to get a reputation that I don’t like women, because that’s not true at all. I just like guys best.

  That’s not politically correct these days. But it’s still fun.

  With Mary.

  KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES

  AGENT JEFF

  Jeff Witjas and I met at the William Morris Agency when I was a client. He wasn’t my agent, but I knew him from the company. When William Morris began to disintegrate, Jeff moved over to APA and set up shop there.

  My long-term agent, whom I adore, and who is still one of my dearest friends, Tony Fantozzi, was one of the partners at William Morris, but then he retired. So I inherited a new representative with whom I wasn’t really connecting.

  I kept getting calls from APA: Would I come in and take a meeting?

  They weren’t from Jeff, but I knew where they were generated from.

  Tony, who was no longer with William Morris, said in his inimitable tough-guy Italian accent, “Why don’t you take the meeting?”

  So I went down to APA, and I went into this boardroom for a meeting with all their executives seated around the table. I didn’t have to explain my work or what I’d done or my background. They’d all done their homework. I was really impressed by that, and very gratified. So we talked quite a bit, and then they made the formal request: Would I consider coming to the agency?

  I said, “Let me think it over.”

  After the meeting, Tony picked me up and we went back to the Beverly Hills Hotel and had a beer and talked about it. I explained to him that I was really impressed at how they had worked at being informed about my career to date.

  Tony said, “Why don’t you go with them?”

  And so Jeff became my representative at APA, and I haven’t stopped working since.

  We’re a great team. He never lets me go on a trip—for instance, to New York—without accompanying me. Not just as a protector but as an arranger—he takes care of all the appearances and sets everything up while we’re in town. He’s a delightful travel companion, because he never lets me get overloaded but he still gives me the freedom to do things that are important to me.

  On one occasion, we were spending three nights in New York. We’re both fans of Chinese food, so that first night we found this wonderful Chinese restaurant and were as happy as could be. As you know, there are many good restaurants in New York City. So on the second night we were trying to decide where to go to eat and somehow decided to go back to the same place.

  The third night, we didn’t even discuss it—we just went right back to the Chinese place. And the next time we were to go to New York, he called in advance from California and set up a reservation.

  It’s obvious how well we get along.

  When we get home, I call his wife and daughter and thank them for loaning him to me.

  We have a lot in common, and I rely on him implicitly.

  I trust his judgment more than I trust my own!

  With my agent, Jeff Witjas, and Ann Moore, then the CEO of Time, Inc.

  ©PATRICK MC MULLAN.COM

  ANIMAL KINGDOM

  BUTTERSCOTCH

  Let me share another animal-related episode that I revisit in my mind from time to time, like a mental DVD.

  BraveHearts Therapeutic Riding & Educational Center is a fine therapeutic riding school in Chicago dedicated to giving disabled children a new perspective, and I was invited to host their annual fund-raiser. I was familiar with BraveHearts because the former chairman of Morris Animal Foundation, Dan Marsh, and his wife, Dayle, are on the board. A few years earlier, they had enlisted my help on behalf of a beautiful young horse named Butterscotch who had terribly crippled hooves—a result of flounder, followed by a bad case of pneumonia. There wasn’t money for the necessary medical procedures at the time, but Dan and Dayle made such a case for him, I couldn’t resist getting involved. I underwrote the surgery and he made a complete recovery. When the invitation came to host the benefit, my first thought was I’ll get to meet Butterscotch!! and off I went.

  I arrived in Chicago the day of the fund-raiser and that afternoon was taken to the ranch for a tour of the school.

  Riding therapy enables children who have spent time looking up from a hospital bed to get an entirely different view of the world, looking down from the back of a horse. They are led around a corral by a young person walking alongside. Instead of boring exercises in a bleak hospital environment, they receive the same benefits in an exciting and stimulating setting.

  As the tour ended, I headed straight for the stables to find my friend, Butterscotch. They had warned me that he had a tendency to nip, but when I walked up to his stall he put that velvet nose in my hands and seemed to appreciate the kisses.

  I met his trainer, Tom Chambers, who invited me to see a program he had put together, “with your pony, Butterscotch.”

  I followed Tom out to a large corral in the back. I was told, “Just stand still in the middle of the corral and follow my instructions.” He then signaled for the other trainers to bring in Butterscotch. The red horse, however, had his own ideas and it took four burly men to finally manage to push him into the corral. He galloped at full tilt around and around inside the corral fence—with me turning to watch him, Tom standing beside me.

  “Now,” Tom said, “put out your hand.”

  I did so, palm down.

  “No, palm up, for friendship.”

  When I turned my hand over, the horse immediately checked his pace to a walk.

  “Point to him.”

  As I pointed, the pony stopped completely, his sides heaving.

  Tom continued. “All right, now go over and pat his neck.”

  It was a little intimidating, but I had to trust Tom.

  As I patted the heavily breathing horse, Tom said, “Turn and walk out of the corral, and take Butterscotch home.”

  I walked away and couldn’t believe it as Butterscotch followed me, his head almost on my shoulder—all the way back to his stall!

  Believe me, I’m not trying to sound like some sort of horse w
hisperer. I rode my first horse when I was too young to straddle, during those camping trips to the High Sierras with my parents. My horse, Queenie, was big and broad and gentle—and she wanted to eat absolutely everything along the trail. I wasn’t big or strong enough to control her. The guide had to come and tell her, “Queenie, that’s enough!” And shoo her along. So horse-whispering was not my forte.

  With Butterscotch, Tom was doing all the work, but it was Butterscotch who was making the choices. I learned later that during the whole exercise, Tom was trying to figure out how he was going to transfer Butterscotch’s attention from himself, since he’d done all the training, over to me.

  This lovely horse must have said, “I can handle it—leave it to me.”

  Recently, I received a beautiful crystal paperweight engraved with Butterscotch’s image. My heart broke when I read the note, which told me that Butterscotch had galloped on.

  Godspeed, dear boy.

  PHOTOGRAPH BY ALLEN BOURGEOIS

  KOKO

  Friends are always considered a blessing, but, on occasion, there may be those who are just a little extra-special in their own way.

  Not because they happen to weigh more than three hundred pounds and have incredible strength, nor even because they can communicate without words, but simply because they are, well, special. As is my friend Koko.

  You probably already know of Koko. You may have seen pictures of her tenderly cuddling her beloved kitten. Koko, of course, is the amazing gorilla who has learned to communicate fluently through sign language, thanks to her mentor and best friend, Dr. Francine “Penny” Patterson.

  It was thirty-eight years ago that a young student named Penny Patterson was allowed custody of a baby gorilla from the San Francisco Zoo. Deeply interested in interspecies communication, Penny began an experiment to try to teach Koko to sign. Penny had struck what would become her life’s work.