Isn’t it great that at the age of 88, you can still have firsts in your life – things you have never done before? The incomparable Betty White, television’s longest working actor will host her first ever Saturday Night Live (SNL) with the Mother’s Day episode on May 8, and thus become the show’s oldest host ever.

“Years ago, I turned this down three times, but my agent thinks it’s a good career move now, and I agree, so here we go!” White lovingly laughed.

With 62 years in the business, one would think she’d done just about all there is to do in the entertainment industry, but there are still some firsts to tackle and since White’s like the Energizer bunny, she just keeps going and going and going.

A six-time Emmy winner and recent recipient of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Lifetime Achievement Award, White is best known for her roles in two landmark sitcoms: Sue Ann Nivens on the Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s and a decade later as Rose on the Golden Girls.

Like White, the Golden Girls series seems ageless, as it continues to attract strong ratings on cable. And the reasoning seems to resonate as to why White is still a hot commodity too.

“One reason people still love the show may have to do with the age of the ladies in the cast,” White shared. “It was unusual at that time to see a whole cast of older people, and it’s still unusual. Most of the time, older actors just walk through and say something outrageous and then they disappear. What Golden Girls tells us is that older casts don’t turn off younger viewers. The networks forget that. They think young people only want to see young people on the screen.”

While White has continued to work in the media mainstream, it was undoubtedly her appearance in the Snickers candy commercial during the Super Bowl where she was tackled in the mud by a football player, that likely surged her current popularity into another stratosphere. The spot topped USA Today’s Ad Meter Poll and started a ginormous grass-roots campaign on Facebook, “Betty White to host SNL (please?)!” that attracted nearly half a million members.

When White was asked what she thought about all the hoopla over her Super Bowl spot, and people saying she was back, White laughed and said, “Well I’m flattered, but I never knew I left!”  She also thought the Facebook campaign for her to host SNL was hysterical – but she’s looking forward to the show so she can wipe this off her Bucket List.

Actually, White says she doesn’t have a Bucket List perse, but rather a “to do” list now because she thinks it’s funny how she’s often asked in interviews if there were things she’d still like to do that she hadn’t done yet.  So now when she’s asked, she tells everyone she has a to do list, and at the top of that list is Robert Redford. “I’d like to do Robert Redford,” she says with a grin. White admits that while she’s never actually met Bob (as she refers to him), they are good friends and she says he gets as much a kick out of her crush on him as she does.

It’s evident White still loves life and this is likely one of the secrets to her vitality. Of course, she also doesn’t believe in retirement and while she admits she’s not sure why people keep asking her to work, she certainly has no intention of saying no.

“I’ve got so much energy it’s ridiculous,” White shared. “I’m blessed with good health, I’m having a ball and I still love what I do!”

And all of us still love it too!

Photo Credit Rex Features

Kelly Ferrin, gerontologist and author of “What’s Age Got To Do With It? Secrets to Aging in Extraordinary Ways” has been studying aging and retirement issues for over 25 years. She was one of the first to ever receive a degree in this field from the prestigious Andrus School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California, the top school in the nation for age-related studies.

website: kellyferrin.com ••• email: ageangel@earthlink.net