Betty White

Betty Marion White started in radio, moved to television when it was still a new medium, and in 1953 became the first woman to produce a sitcom when she created and starred in Life with Elizabeth. She turned into a game show fixture through the 1960s and 70s - Password, Match Game, The Hollywood Squares - earning the nickname "the first lady of game shows" and in 1983 became the first woman to win a Daytime Emmy for hosting. Her sharpest acting work came as the man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show from 1973 to 1977, then as the sweetly naive Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls from 1985 to 1992. Most careers would have ended there, but White kept working: a turn in The Proposal in 2009, a Saturday Night Live hosting gig in 2010 that won her another Emmy, then a six-year run on Hot in Cleveland starting at age 88. She died on December 31, 2021, seventeen days before her 100th birthday, holding the Guinness record for longest TV career by a female entertainer.