"Thank goodness we got married when we did, or we would have missed it entirely," Betty
White described her third marriage to Allen Ludden . Less than three weeks before the
highly anticipated centennial birthday, the legendary actress passed away on New Year's
Eve.
Stay tuned to find out what was her last word and why she couldn't let go of her tender
love to Allen Ludden!
Betty's life was filled with passionate romances, but Allen Ludden was the one and only man
who stole her heart.
Following two short-lived marriages, White met Ludden while appearing as a guest on Password
during the show's third week.
"We felt like we knew each other," she recalled the moment their lives crossed.
"He was the most genuine man I've ever known," White once described Ludden.
"I first fell in love with his enthusiasm.
He was interested in everything."
At the time when White and Ludden saw each other for the first time, he was suffering
from the terrible loss of his wife.
"He had these three kids who had lost their mother, who were 9, 10 and 13 at the time.
And somehow, we all became instant friends," Betty recalled as she spoke to the Archive
of American Television.
Within weeks of their meeting, Ludden proposed marriage.
White, who was in no mood for remarrying at that time, once recalled in the interview
that Ludden wouldn’t let go despite her unwillingness to start something serious.
When she refused a diamond wedding ring, he started wearing it on a chain around his neck.
"I just wasn't about to take another chance," White said of marriage in an interview.
"Then I thought, 'Am I going to live the rest of my life without this man?'”
She finally gave in on Easter 1963.
He sent her an adorable white stuffed bunny and in its ears she found gold leaves with
ruby, diamond and sapphire earrings.
They wed that year.
"I wasted all that time we could have been together," she confessed.
However, White admitted in her autobiography that they both took a while to adjust to their
new life together, going from being friends to becoming a family.
She also had homesickness to contend with.
But love was in the air when they were together.
"He would call me from wherever he was working and say, 'You wanna go out to dinner?
You wanna have a date?'
" White recalled the everyday pleasures of spending time with Ludden.
"And I'd say, 'Sure!'
Well, going out to dinner meant he'd stop on the way home and pick up a chicken and
put it on the barbecue.
We'd put on a stack of records, have our barbecue and dance.
We enjoyed each other."
Sure thing, White was over the moon with her marriage.
She once told Johnny Carson , “I'm happier than I've ever been in my life.”
But that genuine and pure happiness was doomed to end shortly.
Everybody was shocked when the heartbreaking news broke out – Ludden was unexpectedly
diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.
He was just 62.
Brilliant as always, White just soldiered it through when her husband was ill.
She would come and rehearse in the studio for hours before rushing to the hospital and
spending time with the love of her life.
Ludden's condition worsened after he fell into a coma in 1980.
Then, just a couple of months shy of the couple's 18th wedding anniversary, he died, leaving
White agonized and heartbroken.
Betty has never actually remarried, she was also vocal about her feelings for Allen, even
after his death.
She even joked that the first two marriages were "rehearsals," while Allen was the love
of her life.
When asked why she wasn't up for another marriage, While just shrugged her shoulders, "If you've
had the best, who needs the rest?"
The couple didn't welcome children of their own, which White never regretted.
"I didn't choose to have children because I'm focused on my career.
And I just don't think as compulsive as I am, that I could manage both," she said in
the interview.
Her long-time executive personal assistant once said that White couldn't let go of her
tenderness to Ludden even after his death.
She kept a photo of him on her bedside table and blew him a kiss every morning.
At night, when she opened the shutters, she blew a kiss to him up in the sky.
"It was a love affair.
We missed 18 years by three days, but it was still a honeymoon," she once said of their
relationship.
In almost four decades after she lost Ludden, White dated other men but didn't see herself
remarrying.
Upon White's death in 2021, her agent and a close friend confirmed that her devotion
to Ludden had never wavered.
"I don't think Betty ever feared passing, because she always wanted to be with her most
beloved husband Allen Ludden.
She believed she would be with him again," he said.
No wonder that according to the assistant who was with White in her last moments, the
actress' last word was "Allen".
White was gearing up to celebrate her 100th birthday on January 17th.
In one of the interviews, she shared it was a blessing to be in such good health and feel
so good throughout her life.
According to White, being born a cockeyed optimist was the key to her upbeat nature.
"I got it from my mom, and that never changed, I always find the positive".
White had a warm presence on the small screen, with a career that dated back to the early
days of TV and that spanned decades.
Long before her hilarious turns on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the '70s and The Golden
Girls in the '80s, she appeared in the I Love Lucy-like Life with Elizabeth, a show she
also produced.
It was the time when she started her own radio show called “The Betty White Show.”
But a drastic turn in Betty’s career occurred when Al Jarvis asked her to co-host the “Hollywood
on Television” variety show.
Al Jarvis), by the way, didn’t stay with this show for long, departing after a few
years, making Betty host the show alone.
Not only is this event believed to turn Betty into the first-ever female television talk
show host, but it also sparked the enormous popularity of White in Hollywood circles.
Betty even tried her talent in production, decisively co-founding the Bandy Productions.
Through this company, Betty landed her spot in a few sitcoms almost immediately.
“Life with Elizabeth” premiered the same year, with Betty in the lead role of a 1950s
housewife who gets into comedic hijinks each episode.
Back to the acting successes, the actress was quickly getting recognition in her field.
Together with Allen, she attended the 18th Emmy Awards, receiving her first nomination
for “The Life with Elizabeth.”
Throughout her long and productive career, Betty managed to get a total of 21 Emmy nods.
Some of her later acting breakthroughs include a guest appearance in “The Mary Tyler Moore
Show”.
In addition to that, she appeared in “The Golden Girls,” a sitcom that was Betty’s
most prominent hit.
These two shows have drastically changed the way older women are represented in the entertainment
industry.
Betty also managed to reincarnate some of her older ideas in the form of a renewed “The
Betty White Show,” which aired as a sitcom for one season.
“The Golden Girls” ended seven years later, with Betty taking part in the Ellen Show and
landing a number of roles in hit films.
Attentive viewers will surely remember White’s acting in “Hard Rain,” “Lake Placid,”
“The Practice,” and “The Proposal to You Again.”
In this period of her career, Betty took new roles and started appearing on different TV
shows.
You’ll also remember an iconic Super Bowl Snickers commercial featuring Betty White.
With immense Internet popularity, Betty, aged 88, was offered to host the Saturday Night
Live, and she did so, only to become the oldest celebrity to host it.
It’s also simply impressive that in 2019, Betty was still busy, doing mostly voice-over
work for animated films.
A film dedicated to Betty’s life called “Betty White: 100 Years Young - A Birthday
Celebration” is scheduled for a theatrical release in January 2022.
With just two-and-half weeks before the release date, Betty quietly passed away in her sleep
.
One would hardly argue that White lived through an impressive and a long-lasting journey in
the entertainment industry.
With more than eighty years of acting, hosting, producing, writing, voicing, and simply being
there, White’s demise was simply shocking.
White once revealed she held no fear of dying.
"My mother had a wonderful approach to death," White said in the interview.
"She always thought of it as — she said, 'We know we have managed to find out almost
anything that exists, but nobody knows ... what happens at that moment when it's over.'
" So she lost somebody very close and very dear, she always thought that person learned
the secret.
It took the curse off of it somehow.
Betty White has been a beloved part of the American media landscape for decades.
Not only was White the very first woman to host a television talk show, she was also
the oldest person to ever host ‘Saturday Night Live’.
Millions will remember Betty White for her charmful, exuberant, and loving nature.
And we will remember her passionate honeymoon-like romance with Allen Ludden as it grew into
a truly legendary and tragic love story.
The legendary actress once shared, "You better realize how good life is while it's happening.
Because before you know it, it will all be gone."
Thanks for everything, Betty White!