White went on to appear in other sitcoms, late night talk shows and daytime game shows. It was during a 1961 appearance on the game show “Password” that White met her third husband, the host Allen Ludden.

White, who had been through two brief marriages previously, initially turned down Ludden’s proposal. The couple remained married for 18 years until Ludden died of stomach cancer in 1981. White never remarried, once telling Larry King, “Once you’ve had the best, who needs the rest?”

A stepmother to Ludden’s three children, White never had children of her own. She was widely known for her work with animals. She once told The Hollywood Reporter: “I’m actually the luckiest old broad alive. Half my life is working in a profession I love and the other half is working with animals.”

In the 1970s, White’s career got a huge boost when she was cast in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” As Sue Ann Nivens, White showed audiences a sly wit lay behind her sweet smile. In contrast, her character on the 80s hit sitcom “The Golden Girls,” opposite Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty, was “terminally naive.”

After “Golden Girls” ended, White guest-starred in a number of shows, including “Ally McBeal,” “The Ellen Show,” “That ’70s Show,” and “Malcolm in the Middle.”

Her career went through another resurgence in the mid-2000s, with White appearing in the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and co-starring opposite Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in “The Proposal.” As her popularity continued to grow for new generations of fans, White became the oldest host of “Saturday Night Live” in 2010, following a widespread Facebook campaign called, “Betty White to Host SNL (Please).”

Two years later, stars of film and television, including Carl Reiner, Tina Fey, Mary Tyler Moore and Ellen DeGeneres, gathered to celebrate White’s 90th birthday.