The star of the series “All in the Family”. Sally Struthers opens up about an experience with the late Betty White that “wasn’t pretty.”
During a recent appearance on the podcast “Let’s Talk About It! With Larry Saperstein and Jacob Bellotti,” the 77-year-old actress recalled her time working on the popular American sitcom, before the subject changed to Bea Arthur and then White.
The actress shared that “now that (White) is gone,” she’s going to talk about her negative experience with the TV legend. White died in December 2021 at the age of 99, just a few weeks short of her 100th birthday.
“I know everybody loves her. They loved her so much,” Struthers said on the podcast. “They were signing petitions for her to be a guest host on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ I know all that. I didn’t have such a good experience with her.”
Struthers revealed that White once “fat-shamed” her while discussing the new show. (CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images; Herb Ball/NBCU Photo Bank)
She explained that she found White to be “a very passive-aggressive woman,” recalling the time she met with White in her home to discuss the pilot of a new game they were working on.
As they worked, Struthers recalled White asking “his hostess to bring out a plate” of snacks for everyone to enjoy while he determined “what worked in the game and what didn’t.”
“Then a plate was put in the middle, and I think they were cookies,” Struthers said. “So I reached for the cookie, and she said in front of everyone, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, honey. You don’t need a cookie.’ I totally embarrassed myself in front of the other people in the room and I thought, ‘God, that’s not nice’.”
This wasn’t the first time someone had commented on Struthers’ weight. Earlier in the podcast, she recalled a moment she shared with “Everyone in the family” creator Norman Lear after telling her she wasn’t the funniest person auditioning to play Gloria Stivic on the sitcom.
Lear told Struthers that she was cast as Gloria because she has a “fat face” like O’Connor. (CBS via Getty Images)
When she asked Lear why she was chosen if he didn’t think she was the best person for the role, he told her that when they were deciding who would play Gloria, he and the producers thought it would be better for the show’s longevity if the character was of the “more like a mama’s girl or a daddy’s girl” type.
“We thought Archie was a lot to swallow for an American audience with his bigotry and social slurs,” she recalled Lear saying. “So we thought we might soften him up if he has a soft spot for his daughter, and she might be a daddy’s girl. So we hired you because, just like Carroll O’Connor, you have blue eyes and a fat face.”
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“So I reached for the cookie, and she said in front of everyone, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, honey. You don’t need a cookie.’ I totally embarrassed myself in front of the rest of the people in the room and I thought, ‘God, that’s not nice’.”
Struthers won two Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Gloria and played the character for nine seasons on CBS, from 1971 to 1979.
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While the “Gilmore Girls” actress had a hard time with White, she was good friends with another “Golden Girls” star, Bea Arthur, who said the two often ran into each other shopping in Brentwood, and Arthur would “smash everyone we’ve ever known.”
Arthur and Struthers first met when Arthur guest starred as Maude on “All in the Family”. (CBS via Getty Images)
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The two first met when Arthur guest-starred on “All in the Family” as Maude, Edith Bunker’s cousin Jean Stapleton. Struthers laughed as she recalled that Arthur was “dirtier than a drunken sailor” and made everyone scatter during rehearsal, saying she “put all kinds of expletives into her lines to shock those men.”
“Bea Arthur comes in and she’s a force of nature,” Struthers said. Arthur’s performance as Maude so impressed Lear and other network executives that they thought, “We should give her her own show.”
“And then we get ‘Maude,'” Struthers said, referring to Arthur’s hit series that ran for six seasons on CBS. “So that’s how ‘Maude’ happened, and because of ‘Maude’ she got like that”Golden girls.'”
