Arts & Entertainment

White Hot Betty White

Famed Oak Parker returns to Chicago for charity fundraiser.

Is there anywhere Betty White isn't these days?

After starring in Hot in Cleveland and taking an Emmy-winning turn as a Saturday Night Live host, she's back with another show, this time a senior citizen hidden camera prank show called Betty White's "Off Their Rockers."

She's authored a new book about animals in the Los Angeles Zoo, slapped Shaquille O'Neal after his videotaped marriage proposal and reluctantly turned down a U.S. Marine's request for a date.

Find out what's happening in Oak Park-River Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

White, 89 and an Oak Park native, stopped back in Chicago over the weekend for a fundraiser and sat for a chat with WGN-TV's Dean Richards. In the 12-minute interview, White briefly discusses her Oak Park upbringing and her busy schedule, rooted in her reluctance to turn down a good gig.

"I've got the spine of a jellyfish," she tells Richards.

Find out what's happening in Oak Park-River Forestfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

White, who turns 90 in January, was born in Oak Park in 1922 and, according to a Wikipedia profile, her family moved to the Los Angeles area during the Great Depression.

Still, it appears those hardworking Midwestern roots run deep. According to a recent New York Times profile, White drives herself everywhere, carries her own bags and recently refused a publisher's helping hand, choosing instead to unpack, autograph and re-pack 2,500 copies of one of her books herself.

“She’s truly a Midwesterner that way,” Wendy Malick, White's co-star in Hot in Cleveland told the New York Times' Frank Bruni. “She’s still the girl from Oak Park, Ill., who was taught to take care of herself, show up on time and do it with the best attitude.”

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