Betty White in Person

by Betty White

As if I wasn’t wiped out by now, in walks Grant Tinker to tell me that Allen’s star will be placed on Hollywood Boulevard right next to mine . . . (put there years ago). That tore it.

  More friends were there . . . Don Fedderson, who started my career when he put me on his station in “The Al Jarvis Show,” then later, with George Tibbies we partnered on “Life with Elizabeth.”

  Talented, funny, music man Frank DeVol, who had been my musical director and right hand on the daytime variety series we did.

  From another major part of my life, the Morris Animal Foundation, executive director Claude Ramsey, flown in from Denver, and our president, Dona Singlehurst, in from Hawaii.

  If anyone ever wonders whether “This Is Your Life” is on the level . . . or asks if they really do surprise people . . . check with me. For the record, I learned that if a subject should ever find out before the show, the mission is scrubbed, and they start over with someone else. Even after all that preparation and meticulous detail . . . and money! Only on a couple of occasions was the surprise blown, when they were so close to airtime they couldn’t abort . . . so it was explained at the top of the show that the subject had found out inadvertently . . . while it was no longer a surprise, they would carry on with the party. Only a couple of slip-ups, out of 504 chances!! Ralph should be running the CIA.

  You may have gathered by now that it was a night I shall never forget.

  And the other thing that happened in the last five days:

  This morning, I did a radio commercial with George Burns. We’ve been friends for a long time, but I’ve never worked with him before. At ten A.M. sharp, this dapper ninety-one-year-old charmer came in to the recording studio, greeted me, and we proceeded to read the script without rehearsal. One take, and George said, lighting his cigar, “We’re never going to get any better than that. Next!”

  We are going to do the TV version of the same commercial next month, and we’ve had a tough time setting a date for it because the schedule is so crowded. Not mine . . . his!

  In the writing of these pieces, I have spent a lot of time looking back. The timing of “This Is Your Life” couldn’t have been more appropriate . . . it was like the capper.

  On the other hand, seeing George this morning, and listening to him, it became abundantly clear . . . the reason he is so full of it is that he keeps planning ahead. He looks forward to the things he will be doing . . . his movies, his nightclub act . . . which in no way detracts from his fondness for where he’s been. He is booked solid till after his hundredth birthday!

  So . . . I have thoroughly enjoyed putting this exercise in retrospection down on paper . . . and “This Is Your Life” was a wonderful sentimental journey.

  Now, however, I’m with George.

  Next?

  AFTERWORD

  As promised, this has simply been a collection of random thoughts on how I feel on a variety of subjects . . . about the things that work for me, and the things that don’t.

  It has been fun to do. I feel a little like the psychiatrist who, after making passionate love to his patient, says, “Well, that solves my problem. What’s yours?”

  I have but one nagging little doubt. It does sound a bit like Golden Rules, doesn’t it? Dear Gussie! Back to the drawing board!