A Familiar Face On The Tube

Actress Betty White is a television perennial, having starred in such hits as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls, and Mama's Family.

This year, she celebrates half a century of appearing on the TV screen. She was in the spotlight in this week's home video segment on The Early Show.

White, who has won six Emmys, is like an old friend to many TV fans, and it doesn't seem to matter if she is playing Sue Anne Nivens on Mary Tyler Moore or Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls.

"I think it's Betty. They've seen me on all the game shows. And the Game Show Network is always doing all of the old games," she says. "And Nickelodeon and Lifetime are doing the old show, so I think they figure, 'She still around?'"

As for her own favorite movies, White says she likes anything with Meryl Streep (whom she has met) or Robert Redford (whom she has not met).

She counts Tootsie and Out of Africa as her favorite movies, adding, "I like a little of everything, really. I'm not too good on animal movies, because they make me cry."

"My life is absolutely divided in half," she says. "I spend more time on animals then I do on my career. But I have to do my career so I can afford the animal work."

She calls her love for animals "a passion I can't explain. But it's so wonderful to have a passion. The people who don't have a passion, they find too much time to complain, I think."