Actress Betty White made a special appearance on Thursday evening at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium in Washington, D.C. The sold-out show was presented by the Smithsonian Associates, which coordinates programs inspired by the Smithsonian’s exhibitions, collections, and research. CBS Radio news correspondent Sam Litzinger asked White questions in a live interview format. In her early days of television, White said she was on-screen for five and half hours a day, six days a week with no script. “It was like going to ‘television college.’ It was a good learning experience,” White said, then joked, “I didn’t learn anything, but it was a good learning experience.”
Although White’s been an actress for more than 60 decades, the 90-year-old panicked during her recent guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. Due to the nature of the show and the many changes leading up to the live broadcast, White was obliged to read cue cards, which she is not a fan of. She said, “He said, ‘don’t look at Tina, look over her head and I’ll be back there with the cue cards,’ and he says, ‘she’s doing the same thing so it will look like you’re looking at each other’. I thought, now will you tell me how you can stand next to Tina Fey and not look at her?” White, who is also an animal advocate and holds the title of “Ambassador To The Animals” at the Los Angeles Zoo, says people don’t realize all the good that zoos do. “There would be so many species today that would be extinct if it weren’t for zoos,” she said. White plans to visit the National Zoo on Friday.
