Veteran
American Actor who played Rose in the hit TV
comedy show The Golden Girls
![Betty White obituary](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cf06ebd9defa615a14e697c5c27a8fbb53dd5b2f/377_381_2332_1399/master/2332.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=4e683f6e8b3726fcb4887caccc1e346d)
Although she will be best remembered for playing the naive Rose Nylund in the hit comedy The Golden Girls (1985-92), Betty White, who has died aged 99, was for seven decades one of the best-loved performers on US television, a consummate professional who won eight Emmy awards, the first and last separated by more than 60 years. She was also a pioneer, in the 1950s one of the first
Women producing television, and, 30 years later, the first female game show host, dubbed a “femcee”.
All four lead actors on The Golden Girls won best
Actress Emmys, but White’s came first, in 1986. This may be because she played against type; Rose was the opposite of her role on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, as Sue Ann Nivens (1973-77), who hid her conniving nature beneath a sugary surface, while performing as the Happy Homemaker at the TV station where Mary worked.