Betty White: TV Legend, But Film Star? Not So Much

A few days ago, the world was saddened by the death of Betty White. The comedy icon, who had been dubbed “The First Lady of Television,” passed just a few weeks before her 100th birthday leaving behind a rich body of work from her radio performances in the ‘40s to her numerous game show stints (she was on everything including The $25,000 Pyramid, Password, and Hollywood Squares), her own program, The Betty White Show, in the ‘50s (she also had a show by the same name in the ‘70s), and of course her classic roles as Happy Homemaker Sue Ann Nivens on the seminal The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Rose Nyland on the popular ‘80s-‘90s sitcom, The Golden Girls, and beyond.

But what about her filmography? She’s been in a bunch of movies, but most were cameos or voice-overs. Why didn’t she ever breakthrough as a movie star? The obvious answer would be that she was too busy on the small screen, to take film acting seriously. Since everyone else is paying tribute to her extensive television background, I thought we’d look at her less heralded movie history, and see what it tells me.

 

Alongside her tireless TV activity, White appeared in around three dozen movies. This may not be accurate as her career goes way back, and there is little information to be found about a lot of films those days.

 

White’s first film, TIME TO KILL was shot four years before her TV career was launched. She is credited as “Lou’s Girl” in the 1945 army training short, which is also notable because DeForest Kelley (McCoy from the original Star Trek), and George Reeves (‘50s Superman) have parts. White’s brief screen-time can be seen here, and you can find the full 2o minute and change pretty easily via Google.

 

According to Wikipedia, White was in a 1951 film called THE DARING MISS JONES aka WILD WOMEN. There’s not much I could deduce about this movie except that it’s about the uprising of a thousand virgin women. WHITE SIRENS OF AFRICA is yet another alternate title. White was most likely little more than an extra, as one would guess by hers being an uncredited role.

It was over a decade later that White returned to the big screen in a much more significant film than her previous film work, ADVISE AND CONSENT, a 1962 political drama based on a novel that won the Noble Prize. White played the fictional Senator Bessie Adams in a star-studded cast headed by Henry Fonda. It’s not available on any streaming service I know, but the last time I checked, the whole film is on YouTube, as is this clip of one of White’s scenes (maybe the only scene – I haven’t watched the whole thing).

Now get this, White’s next movie gig was 24 years later. I can’t tell if BIG CITY COMEDY (1986) is a showcase of sketches or stand-up comedy, I can just tell you that she was credited as “Self.” It’s listed as a documentary on IMDb so maybe it is stand-up. It hardly looks like a movie too, as it’s only an hour. I bet it’s an 80s cable special that maybe got some theatrical showings. I dunno. Let’s move on.

It was yet well over another decade before White went all cinematic again, and it was in an unexpected genre. The movie was HARD RAIN, an action heist thriller starring Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman. Most notable was that her Mary Tyler Moore co-star, Ed Asner, also appeared in the film, but I can’t remember if they have any scenes together.

It was received terribly by the critics, and it flopped harder than the rain, but White, whose part mostly consisted of bickering with her co-star Richard Dysart, got out unscathed especially since her scenes were the only ones that came close to working.

 

The next entry, DENNIS THE MENACE STRIKES AGAIN (1998), is a straight-to-video release so I won’t spend much time with it, but I’m most struck by the casting of White as Martha Wilson, wife of the forever put-upon grumpy old man George Wilson as portrayed by comedian legend Don Rickles, in his last film role no less.

 

1999’s LAKE PLACID had White again wading into unfamiliar water as it was a horror flick concerning a ginormous crocodile. It was a equipped with a capable B-list ensemble headed by Bill Pullman, but White herself could’ve been seen as B-list at the time. The movie was largely panned by critics, but it made enough to spawn five (!) made for TV sequels. I wonder if White was invited back to the franchise, but, I dunno, she may have been killed in the original.

 

Also that year, White was featured in Rob Reiner’s icky marriage-on-the-rocks rom com, THE STORY OF US, starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer. White played Lilian Jordan, the mother of Bruce Willis’s character. His father is played by Red Buttons, so here’s another case of pairing up old familiar comic farts.

Next up, White lent her voice to the live action Disney production, WHISPERS: AN ELEPHANT TALE. She voiced an elephant named Round, surrounded by yet another B-list crowd. No, I don’t mean you, Angela Bassett.

 

I’m going to skip over a few straight-to-video titles, and TV movies (TOM SAWYER, THE RETREIVERS, WILD THORNBERRIES), and head to a throwaway 2003 Steve Martin/Queen Latifah vehicle entitled BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE. Funnily enough, White’s character is credited as Mrs. Kline, Peter’s racist neighbor. I don’t remember her in it, or much else because this is one ultra-forgettable film. 

 

Even though I’m ignoring TV movies for the most part, I’ve got to mention White’s cameo in 2003’s RETURN TO THE BATCAVE: THE MISADVENTURES OF ADAM AND BURT. You can probably guess that the telefilm stars Adam West and Burt Ward as themselves in a wacky adventure that acted as a tribute to the Batman TV series of the ‘60s. There was a running gag on the show in which the caped crusaders are climbing by rope up the side of a tall building, an illusion created by the camera being turned to a 90 degree angle. During their climb, there would be a celebrity cameo in which stars like Jerry Lewis, Dick Clark, Sammy Davis Jr., and Don Ho would pop their heads out of their windows to make some (often meta) wisecrack.

In RETURN TO THE BATCAVE, White fulfills the part of the brief guest starring role by opening here window to complain about Batman and Robin’s noisy ascent, then spouts out, “All night long, people going up and down the walls – it’s enough to drive you crazy!” Great writing, that ain’t. What's funnier than that is that White's credit is actually “Woman in Window During Batclimb Sequence.”

To show where she was in her career, in the 2000s she played three different Grandmothers – Grandma Sophie in THE WILD THORNBERRIES (2001), Grandma Annie in THE PROPOSAL (2009), and Grandma Bunny Byer in YOU AGAIN (also 2009).

Apart from her involvement in the animal activism (her biggest passion) documentaries YOUR MOMMY KILLS ANIMALS, IN SEARCH OF PUPPY LOVE, BETTY WHITE GOES WILD, and BETTY WHITE: CHAMPION FOR ANIMALS, the grand lady shined in a string of animated films. She contributed voice work to PONYO (2008), THE LORAX (2012), TOY STORY 4 (2019), and TROUBLE (2019), which was her final film role.

Looking over White’s filmography affirms the obvious: she was a television goddess; not a cinematic deity. Her movie roles were largely in forgettable films, many of which are unavailable or, at least, hard to find. With her brief insubstantial pop-ins in many of her film appearances, she didn’t get a chance to really strut her stuff. If only someone had written a movie vehicle for her talents. If only.

That’s okay. She left behind a vast array of quality work on the small screen that is, of course, her true legacy. She won seven Emmys, and countless other awards (including a Grammy!), so she’s not really lacking an Oscar. She probably didn’t care about that anyway. But whatever the medium, she appeared to be having a lot of fun.

 

My personal TV career favorite is her part as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her wicked delivery of sometimes racy, sometimes cruel, one-liners was delicious. I preferred Sue Ann to her performance as Rose on The Golden Girls. Sure, Rose was really funny, but I liked White better as a razor sharp, smart professional than as a ditz. 

 

If anyone has a favorite example of White on the silver screen, please speak up via the comments below. I doubt that there will be anyone speaking up though, we all know that in this business we call show, White was most at home on what used to be called “the boob tube.” Hell, she may have even coined that phrase.

 

More later...