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Susan Lucciis rememberingBetty Whitefor the kind person that she was.
While chatting with PEOPLE about her ongoing collaboration with theAmerican Heart Associationand itsGo Red for Womeninitiative, the 75-year-old actress also opened up about previously working with White on the set of the television seriesHot in Cleveland.
Recalling how her time guest-starring on the show as a fictionalized version of herself was “just so much fun,” Lucci said she met White for the first time during rehearsals for the sitcom.
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Noting that she could see director’s chairs in the distance of the soundstage, Lucci explained, “All of a sudden Betty White — who I had never met, but admired so much, of course, fromGolden Girlsand everything else, just like everybody else — called out to me in a stage whisper, ‘Susan, Susan! Come sit next to me,’ and she patted the director’s chair next to her.”
“I will never forget that,” she said. “I mean, I was the new girl in town. I had no idea what to expect.”
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“Betty White was everything you would hope Betty White would be,” theAll My Childrenactress added, noting that White was also “warm, gracious and talented” altogether.
Whitediedlate last year on Dec. 31 at age 99. The beloved actress' agent and close friend Jeff Witjas firstconfirmed to PEOPLEin a statement that White “died peacefully in her sleep at her home” that morning.
“Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever,” Witjas said previously. “I will miss her terribly and so will the animal world that she loved so much. I don’t think Betty ever feared passing because she always wanted to be with her mostbeloved husband Allen Ludden. She believed she would be with him again.”
White, who was preparing to celebrate her 100th birthday on Jan. 17,opened upto PEOPLE about her feelings about the milestone occasion before her death. “I’m so lucky to be in such good health and feel so good at this age,” she said at the time. “It’s amazing.”
source: people.com
