Betty White turned down a Jack Nicholson hit due to a disturbing scene

For those who needed to work with the great Betty White At any level in his extraordinary 70-plus yr profession, one of the best wager was to supply him a job in tv. Starting with the discuss present “Hollywood on Tv” in 1949, White made the small display screen and American dwelling rooms his dwelling by way of sitcoms, sport reveals and appearances on late-night applications like “The Tonight Present Starring Johnny Carson. White was a pleasant presence with killer comedy timing, his secret weapon being this zany character who typically bubbled with surprisingly sizzling wit. You by no means knew what was going to return out of White’s mouth, and it made her one of many medium’s very unlikely stars (though her presence was once ratings poison for “Bones”).

That is to not say White hasn’t made movies. Her first credited look did not come till 1962, when she performed a U.S. senator from Kansas in Otto Preminger’s terrific “Advise and Consent.” She wouldn’t return to on-screen performing till the 1998 motion movie “Onerous Rain”, at which level she started working extra steadily in characteristic movies, often in small supporting roles.

Apparently, there was a suggestion on the desk for her to make an earlier return to movie in a high-profile Jack Nicholson comedy, however she declined for a fairly awkward motive.

Throughout certainly one of his many appearances on “The Tonight Present with Jay Leno,” White revealed that he was supplied a task within the Oscar-winning movie. James L. Brooks film “As Good as It Gets.” This may have introduced her again to the films two years earlier than “Onerous Rain”, however that was to not be on account of White’s objection to a mean-spirited gag within the script. As White instructed Leno, “That they had this lovely canine in it, however in a single scene the man goes down the hallway and places the canine within the trash chute.”

What was White’s particular drawback with this joke? “After all he lands on cushions and the whole lot is ok,” she mentioned. “However I did not wish to give that instance, since you by no means know what loopy individuals or children will see this and assume I can do it. The director mentioned, ‘The canine is ok, the canine is ok!’ However I mentioned, ‘The canine is ok, the canine is ok!’ However I mentioned, ‘I simply cannot do that.’ »

White acknowledged she could have made a profession mistake by withholding successful, however she had no regrets. And this could come as no shock, as White was a widely known advocate for the Los Angeles Zoo and the American Humane Society. Even a foolish, seemingly innocuous bit just like the trash chute scene in “Additionally Good as It Will get” was a no-go for White.