On her television debut.

I went to Beverly Hills High School and graduated in 1939. About three months after I graduated, they asked the student body president Harry Bennett and me to do an experimental television show at the old Packard Building in downtown Los Angeles. They had set up a studio on the 6th floor...and the picture carried all the way down to the main floor so the audience would come and stand around the cars to watch the little monitor, and we were up there with brown lipstick and brown makeup and sweltering in this little studio.

On her start at KLAC.

I would still go around these radio casting things, and by that time, television had started on the East Coast, but really not on the West Coast at all. And they said: "Can you sing?" Sure! You said yes to whatever you could do. "Can you juggle?" Sure! And so Dick Haynes, who was a popular disc jockey at the time, was doing a variety show. They said that it won't pay anything...but you can sing two songs. So I sang "Slow Boat to China" and "Somebody Loves You." I didn't take any challenges!

On seeing color television for the first time.

They called us in one day for a meeting, all the people who were appearing on the show. They said, we want to show you something. And they started a film in the corner of the meeting room and it was in black and white. I remember there were eggs and bacon frying. And all of the sudden, it went to color. Well of course we were at NBC, and RCA was the one who developed the color thing....It was wonderful...it made black and white look kind of shabby.

On game shows.

I loved them. I started doing a couple of game shows on television and then more and more because then they became a craze, so you would play them all....It was a mental exercise.

On being cast in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

Early in the fourth season, I got a call one day. Could I come in and do the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" next week?...They described the character to me. They wanted a happy homemaker who was a sickening, yucky, icky Betty White-type. What I found out long after-the-fact was, [casting director] Ethel Winant said: "Why don't you get Betty?"...They said: "Oh no, Betty and Mary are friends and if Betty doesn't get the part it might make it awkward for Mary." Of course you don't get every part you go in for. But they read about 12 other gals, and they couldn't find anyone sickening enough. So Ethel said: "Why don't you do Betty, she's not going to hurt you. It's a one-shot anyway."

On winning an Emmy for her role as Sue Ann Nivens.

Talk about a thrill. My first Emmy was in 1952, so I waited 22 years for the next one. And when they announced my name that night, and Ed Asner presented it to me. Oh I was a mess! I was just so excited and so happy, and so grateful for the opportunity. I started out as an actress in the business, but then I did game shows and talk shows, and I became a "television personality." And there's a big difference. They don't think of you as an actress. So everybody was so surprised. "Why Betty can act. Isn't that amazing?" And it really did turn my career completely around.

On "The Golden Girls."

These people [four women over 50] just sort of proved that you still have the same lusts and the same humor that you've always had.

On her legacy.

That's what I'd liked to be remembered as, "Betty, their good friend whom they invite into their home."

Compiled by Jenny Kaufman.