Betty White To Receive SAG Lifetime Achievement Award

Career highlights include 'The Golden Girls', 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/15/2009 1:18:05 PM

'Golden Girl' Betty White, who has boasted one of the longest and most successful careers in the history of TV, will receive the Screen Actors Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award Jan. 23 at the SAG Awards ceremony, which will be carried live on TNT and TBS.

"Whether creating some of television’s most indelible characters, plunging into film roles with joyous gusto or perfecting the art of the quip as a television panelist and host, Betty White has entertained audiences with her impeccable comic timing and remarkable wit for more than sixty years," said SAG President Alan Rosenberg in an announcement of the award.

White's broadcast career actually started in radio, with stints on Blondie and The Great Gildersleeve, as well as her own show.

The multiple Emmy-winning actress began in TV in 1949 and has been there ever since, from guest hosting for Jack Parr and Johnny Carson to inumerable game show appearances (she was married to the late Password host Allen Ludden), guest shots on primetime series and soaps, parade-hosting duties, iconic characters on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Golden Girls, to recurring roles on The Practice and daytime soap The Bold and the Beautiful.