Celebrate Betty White’s 99th Birthday with 7 Streaming Favorites

Kristen Lopez
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

We don’t have much to celebrate in 2021 so far, but there’s one person we can always count on: actress Betty White! America’s grandmother is turning 99 today (January 17), and she’s not letting quarantine slow her down. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the “Golden Girls” star shared what she’s hoping to do to celebrate.

“Running a mile each morning has been curtailed by COVID, so I am working on getting ‘The Pet Set’ rereleased, and feeding the two ducks who come to visit me every day,” she said. (If you’re curious, “The Pet Set” was a 1971 series starring White wherein celebrities and their pets would come and chat with her. The series is set to be rereleased on February 23 to celebrate its 50th anniversary.)

More from IndieWire

With so much uncertainty in the world, people tend to lose it when they see their favorite elderly celebrities trending, but White isn’t worried about getting older. In an interview with People magazine she said, “I am blessed with good health so turning 99 is no different than turning 98.” She chalks this up to being perpetually optimistic and not taking herself too seriously.

White has cultivated an incredible, lengthy list of credits: over 120 in total. Her career goes all the way back to 1945 with her first television series, “Life With Elizabeth,” which debuted in 1953. Since then, White has gone on to helm several successful television series, being part of the ensemble cast of “The Golden Girls” and starring in “Hot in Cleveland” from 2010-2015. She’s been nominated for four Golden Globes.

A grassroots campaign in 2010 forced NBC to let White host an episode of “Saturday Night Live.” When she finally jumped on stage at Studio 8H at the age of 88, she became the oldest guest host in the series’ history. She’s most recently lent her voice to the Disney+ streaming series of shorts, “Forky Asks a Question,” as the character Bitey White opposite colleagues Carol Burnett, the late Carl Reiner, and Mel Brooks.

White was the subject of a PBS documentary entitled “Betty White: First Lady of Television” in 2018, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and is a fervent supporter of various animal rights issues.

  • “Betty White: First Lady of Television” is streaming on Netflix.

  • “The Golden Girls,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and “Boston Legal” are streaming on Hulu.

  • “Hot in Cleveland” is streaming on CBS All Access.

  • “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast” (Carl Reiner-hosted 2018 documentary) and “Ponyo” (voicing Noriko) are streaming on HBO Max.

Best of IndieWire

Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.