Betty White: Super Bowl Commercial Can Be "A Life-Changer"
NEW YORK (CBS) If anyone knows the power of a Super Bowl commercial, it's Betty White.
After appearing in a now-infamous Snickers commercial during the Saints-Colts Super Bowl showdown in February, the 88-year-old gained newfound cult icon status and rode the surge in popularity to an Emmy-winning hosting gig on "Saturday Night Live", a role on the TV Land sitcom "Hot in Cleveland" and a host of other appearances.
White said she had no idea the commercial - in which she is tackled and taunts players during a football game - would gain the fame that it did. She didn't even know it would air during the big game.
"First of all, they invited me to do a role on the commercial, but then it wound up airing on the Super Bowl," she explained to CBSNews.com. "And then the doors all started opening and the 'SNL' thing came from that."
Ever since, White says, she's been "all over the place." And she hopes this year's NFL championship will give someone else the same chance.
The actress is encouraging people to submit their homemade commercials to the Doritos and Pepsi MAX "Crash the Superbowl" contest. Applicants create and produce an ad for one of the two brands, and the top three for each will be aired during Super Bowl XLV. Participants can win anywhere from $25,000 for becoming a finalist to $1 million if their ad tops the USA Today Ad Meter, as White's commercial did.
"It can be a life-changer," she said. "For people who want to get into the ad business, they get a chance to put this original commercial together...[the Super Bowl] is the biggest stage in the world."
White is continuing her non-stop pace with an appearance on the season premiere of NBC's "Community," where she plays an anthropology professor who does some "weird things," and a role in the comedy "You Again" alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Kristen Bell and Sigourney Weaver.
"It's a cute script," she said of the film, which hits theaters on Friday, adding that it was "great fun" working with her co-stars.
And she has no plans to slow down - she was just contracted to write two books and is heading to Atlanta to begin shooting the Hallmark Hall of Fame film "The Lost Valentine."
I don't know when I'm gonna get a chance to write it," she mused of the books. "I guess on airplanes."
She also discussed her newly-won Emmy award, in the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series category, for hosting "SNL."
"It's always such a thrill to be nominated," she said. "I know that sounds like a cliche, but it really is. I've gotten 17 nominations, this is my seventh Emmy, and it's just as exciting as the first one."
But she says the thing she's most proud of in her career is being associated with "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Golden Girls," which celebrated the 25th anniversary of its premiere last week.
When asked if she and co-stars Rue McClanahan, Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur realized when the show began that it would become a hit, she responded, "Who could dream that it would be that?"
"I can't believe it's been 25 years since we started...Who'd have thought a show about four old ladies would be successful?" she exclaimed, adding that a big part of the show's success was due to the writing.
"If it wasn't on the page," she said. "We couldn't do it."
She also touched on the recent passing of her "Golden Girls" co-star Harold Gould, who died on Sept. 11 at the age of 86. He played Miles Webber, the boyfriend of White's character, Rose Nylund, on the show.
"I must tell you, that was a heartbreaker," White said. "He was wonderful, he was Rose's lover and he was not only such a fine actor, but such a delightful man. Losing Harold and losing Ruesie [co-star Rue McClanahan, who died in June] and Estelle [Getty] was hard...but losing Ruesie and Harold in such a short time was a heartbreaker."