Betty White’s heartbreakingly beautiful last words revealed following tragic death
Betty White attends media preview for Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association’s Beastly Ball fundraiser on 11 June 2015. (Vincent Sandoval/WireImage)
Betty White’s co-star has revealed the beloved actor’s final word – and it shows the depth of White’s love for her late husband, Allan Ludden.
Vicki Lawrence, who worked with White on the 80s sitcom Mama’s Family, told Page Six that she contacted her friend Carol Burnett as soon as she heard the news of White’s passing on Friday (31 December).
“I texted Carol and said ‘This just sucks. I hate this. It’s just horrible to see the people you love so much go away,’” Lawrence said.
She continued: “Carol wrote back and said, ‘I know, I know. I spoke to Betty’s assistant, who was with her when she passed, and she said the very last word out of her mouth was ‘Allan’.”
Lawrence continued: “How sweet is that? I said ‘That is so sweet. God, I hope that’s true. For all of us, I really hope it’s true, a lovely thought’.”
White died at home at the age of 99 – just a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday, which she would have celebrated on 17 January.
Jeff Witjas, White’s agent and close friend, told People that he didn’t think The Golden Girls star “ever feared passing” as she “always wanted to be with her most beloved husband Allen Ludden”.
“She believed she would be with him again,” Witjas added.
Following two previous marriages, White found love with game show host Ludden, who she met during a guest appearance on the first season of Password.
Game show host Allen Ludden and Betty White appear in a publicity shot for ‘Password’ from 1966. (Getty/CBS Television Network/De Carvalho Collection)
Ludden proposed to White several times – and White finally agreed in 1963. They got married the same year.
Betty White recalled in a 2012 interview that she had reservations about getting married a third time as she “wasn’t about to take another chance”. But she said her love for Ludden outweighed those fears.
“Then I thought, ‘Am I going to live the rest of my life without this man?’” White said. “Thank goodness we got married when we did.”
Sadly, Ludden was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer in the late 70s. He died in June 1981, just days shy of the couple’s 18th anniversary.
White never remarried. The Hot in Cleveland star told Anderson Cooper in 2011 that she had “the love of my life” in Ludden and she believed no one else would compare.
“If you’ve had the best, who needs the rest?” White said.
HuffPost reported that Witjas did not confirm nor deny Lawrence’s story about White’s last word.
