At 87, Betty White watches her weight -- and the rest takes care of itself, thanks to a two-story house, a ready laugh and the pursuit of lifelong passions of show business and animal health and welfare.
In "The Proposal," White plays Ryan Reynolds' character's grandmother, or "Gammy," who is about to turn 90. The actress looks a decade or more younger and swears by weighing herself every morning, she said in a recent phone call.
"If I put on a pound, I just make sure I take that pound off because if it gets to be three or four pounds, it becomes permanent, so I keep my weight at a level. And I have a two-story house and a very bad memory, so I'm up and down stairs all the time thinking, 'What did I come up here for, what was I going to bring downstairs?' So I think that's what keeps me in shape."
Being blessed with good health brings a boost of energy, she says, adding, "Doing what I love to do is better than anything else." In "The Proposal," she loved playing an Alaskan grandmother who thinks she's a shaman, a wrinkle that required her to learn a song in Eskimo.
"And if you think that's easy, it isn't, because you have no syllables to identify with. It's not like any other language, so that was a bit of a challenge ... that's what made it tough to learn. I couldn't fake it."
White, who left her merry mark on television as naive Rose Nylund on "The Golden Girls" and happy homemaker Sue Ann Nivens on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," has been singing the praises of "Proposal" co-stars Reynolds and Sandra Bullock along with director Anne Fletcher.
Bullock plays a tightly wound book editor who pretends to be engaged to her assistant, played by Reynolds, to avoid deportation to Canada. The pair travel to his Alaskan hometown for his grandma's birthday party.
To help promote the movie, White appeared alongside the stars in a funnyordie.com video in which she gives Reynolds the cold shoulder and orders him to fetch her some coffee while lavishing praise on Bullock.
"Proposal" is rated PG-13, but the funnyordie.com video would earn an R for salty language.
"At first, I asked what does that have to do with our romantic comedy," she says, but the makers assured her they would bleep the raunchy language. "It's turned out it's become very popular on the Web and it sounds like a musical: bleep, bleep, bleep."
White starred in her first sitcom in 1953, a domestic comedy titled "Life With Elizabeth" that prompted TV Guide to call her a candidate for "America's sweetheart," a title later shared by Bullock. White has been flashing those dimples while delivering comic zingers ever since.
Now, she finds herself working with actors young enough to be her children or grandchildren, and loving it.
"In this day and age, it's such a joy to be with somebody, as big a star as Sandra is and as beautiful and as talented and funny, but as a human being, she's the most down-to-earth, normal, non-movie star. We're going to be friends forever. We've had dinner together a couple of times since the movie," White said.
She also predicts even bigger things for Reynolds, whose Deadpool character from the "X-Men" franchise is getting a spinoff. "He's going to be a major, long-term star. First of all, he's a great actor, but also such a nice human being without the attitude that so many young people have."
Making Reynolds work as Bullock's assistant isn't the only gender reversal of "The Proposal." Fletcher is that rare woman directing a Hollywood feature, and White called her a delight with a delicious sense of humor who maintained a "light feeling" on the set.
Reynolds married actress Scarlett Johansson during the filming, which prompts White to quip: "Of course I was put out because here I was single and he married somebody else." Bullock joked, to People magazine, that White flirted with her husband, Jesse James, during shooting, too.
White, the widow of game-show host Allen Ludden, doesn't have time to watch much television today. "Isn't that silly to say at this age? But I'm not home all day because I'm working, and at night, there's a lot of catching up to do so it doesn't swamp you. ... . I watch the news, and Alex Trebek and I have dinner together if I'm home, with 'Jeopardy.' "
A well-known animal lover and longtime advocate for animal health and welfare, White shares her home with just a single pet named Pontiac.
"I have one golden retriever, my best buddy. I lost my three babies -- I had a 16-1/2-year-old Shih Tzu, a 10-year-old golden retriever and an 11-year-old Himalayan kitty and I lost them all within two months of each other, but Pontiac and I are doing just fine."
The 5-year-old Pontiac couldn't fulfill his guide-dog training due to a "bum knee," but he romps in White's big back yard and rips into a never-ending supply of stuffed snowmen toys.
White lost more than just her animal friends in recent times with the deaths 10 months apart of "Golden Girls" co-stars Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur. "That's losing a family."
In late July, White is scheduled to start filming a Disney comedy called "You Again" starring Sigourney Weaver, Kristen Bell and Jamie Lee Curtis.
"I'm, of course, a grandmother, has to be, but this is a different kind of grandmother. She's one who thinks she's really with it, but every once in a while she gives the wrong answer to the right question."
(Contact Pittsburgh Post-Gazette movie editor Barbara Vancheri at bvancheri(at)post-gazette.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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