Ceremony for Betty White stamp held at LA Zoo

LOS ANGELES — A first-day-of-issue ceremony for a stamp featuring beloved actress and animal welfare advocate Betty White was held Thursday at the Greater Los Angeles Zoo.

White was a member of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association's Board of Trustees and Board of Zoo Commissioners. White was honored in 2006 by then- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as Los Angeles' "Ambassador to the Animals" for her lifelong work for animal welfare.

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"Betty White was an American treasure," Amber McReynolds, chairwoman of the USPS Board of Governors, said at the ceremony at the zoo's Allen Ludden Plaza

The forever stamp depicts a digitally created portrait of White displaying her impish smile against a violet-colored background

The forever stamp depicts a digitally created portrait of White displaying her impish smile against a violet-colored background. She is portrayed wearing a polka-dotted blue top

"Betty White was an American treasure," Amber McReynolds, chairwoman of the USPS Board of Governors, said at the ceremony at the zoo's Allen Ludden Plaza. "With this stamp, we honor and remember the beloved `First Lady of Television' and the enduring mark she left on our American culture."

The forever stamp depicts a digitally created portrait of White displaying her impish smile against a violet-colored background. She is portrayed wearing a polka-dotted blue top.

"I was absentmindedly drawing instead of eating my eggs and looking back down at the mess I had been making in my sketchbook, I saw that at some point, I had drawn a paw print," Dale Stephanos, the artist who worked on the stamp, said at the ceremony.

"I had a bit of a eureka moment and thought, what if I just give Betty an earring that's in the shape of a paw print?"

White's career began shortly after graduating from Beverly Hills High School in 1939 and continued through supplying a voice for the animated comedy "Trouble," which was made in 2019 but not released until 2021. White was an early star of local and network television, was selected to the Television Academy Hall of Fame and won five Primetime Emmys.

Born Jan. 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois, just outside Chicago, Betty Marion White moved with her family to Southern California as a child. For a time, she lived at the northwest corner of Cahuenga Boulevard and Fountain Avenue, four blocks north of the Ren-Mar Studios (now Red Studios Hollywood) where "The Golden Girls" was taped.

White made her first television appearance in 1939, singing songs from "The Merry Widow" with Harry Bennett on an experimental Los Angeles station. In the 1950s, she co-hosted "The Al Jarvis Show" on what is now KCOP- TV Channel 13.

"It ran 5 1/2 hours a day, six days a week," White said in a 1992 interview with the Los Angeles Times. "When you went in the morning, you never knew what the day would hold."

White and Jarvis would fill the time with singing, interviews, live commercials (the record for a day was 58) and comedy sketches, "which we would make up as we went along."

One sketch that attracted a following was "Alvin and Elizabeth," a look at a young married couple. It was transformed into a nationally syndicated situation comedy, "Life With Elizabeth," which ran from 1953-55.

Another situation comedy, "Date with the Angels" ran on ABC in 1957 and 1958. A short-lived comedy variety show, "The Betty White Show," followed later in 1958 on the same network.

White made regular appearances and was the occasional guest host of "The Tonight Show" from 1958-62 when it was hosted by Jack Paar. During the 1960s, White was a frequently seen series guest star, a parade host and game show panelist, notably on "Password," which was hosted by Ludden, her husband who died in 1981.

White won the first of her five Primetime Emmys in 1975 for outstanding continuing performance by a supporting actress in a comedy series for her portrayal of household hints show host Sue Ann Nivens on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." She won again in the category the following year.

White received the outstanding lead actress in a comedy series Emmy in 1986 for her portrayal of the sweet and naive Rose Nylund on "The Golden Girls." White won the first of her two outstanding guest actress for a comedy series Emmys in 1996 for playing an exaggerated version of herself on "The John Larroquette Show."