Betty White Named AP's Entertainer of the Year
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) It's been a big year for Betty White, and now she has another accolade to add to her list - the 88-year-old actress has been named Entertainer of the Year by the Associated Press.
"It's ridiculous," she said of the honor. "They haven't caught on to me, and I hope they never do."
White won with 20 of the 102 votes cast, two votes ahead of the cast of "Glee." Tied for third with 13 votes were Conan O'Brien, James Cameron and Apple's iPad. Jon Stewart closely followed with a dozen votes.
The octogenarian kicked off 2010 with her acceptance in January of a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild. Her speech, in which she thanked SAG "from the bottom of my bottom," reminded many of her talent -- showcased for years on "The Golden Girls" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" -- for a sharp comedy cloaked by warm charm.
The appearance led to a fan-created Facebook campaign urging "SNL" to make her a guest host. After White's award-winning Snickers Super Bowl ad, more than 500,000 were supporting her on the social networking site.
It wasn't a new idea to the NBC sketch program, though. White says that she had turned down "SNL" three times before.
"I thought I was so Californian and it's so New York-oriented that I would be like a fish out of water," she says. "This time, my agent said, 'No, you've got to do it.' ... But I was scared to death."
"It was the insecurity, I think, that had me scared," she says, noting that she can't stand using cue cards, a necessity for a live show that's revised until minutes before broadcast. A tip to focus on the cue cards instead of her fellow actors helped, but she still had to adjust. "I thought, 'How do you not look at Tina Fey when you're standing right next to her?'"
But the show came off incredibly well. Airing on Mother's Day weekend in May, most of the recent female "SNL" alum returned for the show, including Fey, Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch. White appeared in every sketch and the episode was watched by 12.1 million viewers, one of the show's biggest audiences in years. The appearance also won White her seventh Emmy, for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series.
She also starred in "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock, the comedy "You Again" with Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigorney Weaver and is back on television with the sitcom "Hot in Cleveland."
Next year will be a busy one for White, too - the second season of "Hot in Cleveland" starts on Jan. 19, and feature a guest appearance from Mary Tyler Moore. White also appears in an upcoming Hallmark "Hall of Fame" movie, "The Lost Valentine," and has two books due out: "If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't)" and a photograph book of animals from the Los Angeles Zoo.
Next month, White will return to the SAG Awards, where she's nominated for best actress in a comedy series. "Hot in Cleveland" is also up for best comedy ensemble.
Says White: "It's just been a lovely year, I must admit."