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Joy Behar Page
Battle of the Wills; New Details on Van Der Sloot Case; Interview With Betty White
Aired June 14, 2010 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOY BEHAR, HOST: Tonight, as his ex-wife goes to court in an attempt to get control of Gary Coleman`s estate and remains, a new will and a mystery woman surface.
Then, reports say Joran Van Der Sloot is so afraid of Peruvian prison, he`s offering authorities a deal. He will tell them where to find Natalee Holloway`s body if they move him to an Aruban jail.
She`s been knocking around the TV business for 63 years. And tonight I`m finally going to give her, her big break. Let`s hope she makes the most of it. Betty White will join me.
That and more, right now.
Gary Coleman is making more news in death than he did in the last years of his life, which may explain the battle over his estate. Some insiders are speculating that the late actor`s image may make a fortune now that he`s gone.
The fight over that theoretical cash headed to court today after yet another will popped up over the weekend.
With me now are Shavar Ross, producer and actor who was a cast mate of Coleman`s on "Diff`rent Strokes"; Mickey Sherman, criminal defense attorney; and Jawn Murray, correspondent for the "Tom Joyner Morning Show" and columnist for AOL Black Voices.
First I want to go to Ken Baker, executive news editor for E! Ken, who is fighting over his estate and what do they want?
Right now, we have two women fighting over it. It`s his ex-wife, Shannon Price, who actually was not actually married to Gary Coleman at the time of his death. That`s the woman that we heard on the 911 call who was living with him at the time he died and also worked with doctors and decided to take him off life support. And there`s been this really big controversy over whether this was the right decision or not.
She`s fighting for the estate, even though they had an agreement that granted her control of the estate dating back to 2007 when she was married to Gary Coleman. There`s dispute over whether that`s still valid or not.
Now the second woman that has popped up is a woman named Anna Gray. Anna Gray met Gary Coleman in early 2000s. They were friends. She ended up moving in with him, was a confidante, was sort of a caretaker for him and ended up moving to Utah with Gary in 2005. They were that close.
We`re told that it`s not anything romantic but that they were definitely very close. And in 2005, he signed in a will, a handwritten document, granting her control of his estate. So right now we have these two women fighting over it.
BEHAR: Wow. And Shannon filed a petition, right, to get control of the will. But why does she think she has the right for control over the estate? She wasn`t really married to him when he died.
BAKER: Well, what she is arguing that she had what`s called a common law marriage, that even though they were divorced, that they were living together, they were sharing property and they were living together. Thus that would make it a common law marriage. And what we`re told is that in Utah there is a very flexible definition legally of common law marriage and that she may have a valid argument but all that has to play out in a court.
If in fact, the court did find that the common law marriage was valid, then the will that was signed in 2007 that granted her the beneficiary would then be valid.
BEHAR: Wow. And his death certificate, that was made public today. Do you know what it said?
BAKER: Yes. Well, this is actually pretty big news. The coroner in Utah released the death certificate, and they found that it was a, quote, "accidental death due to the fall that he had," and that there was no foul play suspected. There had been some rumors about whether or not there was some fight or anything like that. They said that he suffered a fall and it was accidental and that this is the end of their investigation.
BEHAR: Ok. Thanks very much, Ken, for that update.
Now, let me bring in my panel. Shannon says that they were in a common law marriage in Utah. First of all, I didn`t even know that they had such a thing anywhere in the country.
MICKEY SHERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Just a few states do. It`s very common that would be alleged in a state like Utah. It`s not necessarily here including New York, Connecticut or New Jersey. But common law, not that often you hear about it, but it`s valid.
BEHAR: It`s valid.
SHERMAN: Yes.
BEHAR: Wow. Now Shavar, Anna Gray -- what do you know about her?
SHAVAR ROSS, ACTOR AND PRODUCER: I know nothing of Anna Gray. And you know, all this is fine and dandy, if these women want to fight over this will we understand that. But I`m here to say can you guys mutually agree to lay this man to rest. That`s the most important thing right now. We can do that.
Even the courts -- the mortuary is saying, hey, can we lay him to rest? This has been over a week and a half now. Can we do something about that first?
BEHAR: Yes. What`s holding up the burial exactly? Is it all this red tape, all this stuff?
JAWN MURRAY, CORRESPONDENT, THE TOM JOYNER MORNING SHOW: It`s all the red tape. It`s all the confusion. And it seems to be the latest trend in celebrity deaths. You had James Brown who was like waiting to be laid to rest for like four years. You have Michael Jackson who was waiting for months. It`s like a Guinness Book of World Records thing with celebrities now, who can hold out the longest?
BEHAR: Oh, my goodness.
But, you know, now Shannon Price, this one that she says she`s his common-law wife. She has a handwritten amendment that was written in 2007 that leaves everything to her.
SHERMAN: In many states that`s valid. It`s called holographic will.
BEHAR: Holographic --
SHERMAN: It`s one thing I learned preparing for the bar exam. I think I got that question right, maybe. And it`s when it`s handwritten by the person. The key is, is there any undue influence brought upon him.
It`s like the Howard Marshall and the Anna Nicole Smith. Did she have undue influence over him? Gary Coleman was strange in life and stranger in death. Who`s to say who had influence over him or not.
BEHAR: But if there`s no third party, like a legal -- let`s say a notary even. A third party involved, two witnesses, this type of thing, what good is it really? How could that hold up in court?
SHERMAN: Because it gives the lawyers something to do. That`s going to be the real winners here.
BEHAR: The amendment is from before the divorce, by the way.
SHERMAN: Yes.
BEHAR: So it`s when they were married. What do you think about that?
SHERMAN: Anything is tenable, anything is tenable. The key is was there undue influence? Did they have control over him? He was articulate to the day he died.
MURRAY: There`s a story about to come out as well. I just read the documents before I got to the studio here today. That she signed a quick settlement deed saying that she didn`t want any rights to his house or anything. So the time of the divorce, the 2008 divorce, she said she did not want rights to his house or anything like that. So at the time she was distancing herself from his financial situation.
BEHAR: I see.
ROSS: Also, Joy, I was going to say Mr. Mial seems to be out of the picture as well --
BEHAR: That`s right.
ROSS: -- because of this new will here. And so, you know, we`ve got two left. Can we get it resolved here?
BEHAR: He`s referring to this guy Dion Mial who is the executor of the Coleman estate. He has taken himself out of it now that he sees these other wills there. So he actually sounds like the first person to do the right thing.
SHERMAN: Or he`d come to the conclusion that there`s no money here. There`s no pot of gold. There`s no Howard Marshall money involved here.
ROSS: There`s such a thing as pension.
BEHAR: There`s a pension, yes.
SHERMAN: The SAG pension -- yes. But I don`t think he`s going to get any back-end money as they say from "Diff`rent Strokes", I would imagine.
BEHAR: What do you think Jawn is Shannon -- why is she fighting so hard for this? Is it the money or is it --
MURRAY: I think Shavar makes a good point. It is the pension.
BEHAR: The pension.
MURRAY: The pension. Gary was broke in life. But in death, the pension is going to become available.
BEHAR: How much could that pension be?
MURRAY: Shavar, as an actor, you probably could speak to this. It`s something -- there`s a retirement age that you have to work to a particular point to get access to the pension in SAG.
BEHAR: Right.
MURRAY: So even though, he was working as a security guard --
ROSS: I have a great pension. I`m just not 65 yet.
MURRAY: You have to be 65 to get access to the pension or die. So in death, the pension becomes available.
BEHAR: I see. So how much do you think she`s gotten then or he`s got?
MURRAY: Well, if he made upwards of more than $18 million during his "Diff`rent Strokes" days and that show still airs in syndication on every cable network known to man, there`s a lot of money accruing in there.
SHERMAN: He wasn`t like Seinfeld or Larry David, he wasn`t getting a piece of that. I can`t imagine --
BEHAR: It`s not like that. It`s not that kind of money.
MURRAY: Yes. But no, SAG has been constantly putting money away and it`s accruing. It`s probably more money than she has working a 9 to 5.
BEHAR: Well, Todd Bridges says that he`s getting $150,000 a year from his SAG pension. But Gary obviously made more money. He wasn`t the creator of the show. He`s a hired hand and he gets what he gets.
All right. Gary Coleman`s parents went on the show on Friday, on "The Today Show". Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you think your relationship with your son was so irreparably damaged?
WILLIE COLEMAN, GARY COLEMAN`S ADOPTIVE FATHER: Outside interference, influence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Outside influence?
W. COLEMAN: Yes.
SUE COLEMAN, GARY COLEMAN`S ADOPTIVE MOTHER: That and also -- I don`t know. You know, he wanted to be his own man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: Shavar, what outside influence do you think they`re talking about?
ROSS: First of all, I had a great talk with Gary`s parents. I spoke with them extensively. And I`m telling you, there`s not a lot of people grieving right now, believe it or not, over Gary`s death. But I can tell you this, that they are sincere. These people are sincere.
It took time for them to get the interview out, to get their heart out about how they felt about Gary and his situation. So we can`t blame the parents. They definitely mismanaged this child`s money.
BEHAR: They mismanaged it.
ROSS: Not intentionally. Not intentionally. Not intentionally. These people -- and I hate to say this and I know there`s a lot of people involved -- but my heart tells me that his body, cremation, whatever it is, needs to be in his parents` hands. They need to be -- they need to be with them.
BEHAR: But they`re not making --
ROSS: I don`t even know why I`m saying that, Joy. But I feel like -- something tells me he needs to be there.
BEHAR: I see. But they`re not fighting for the remains.
ROSS: That`s a good thing.
SHERMAN: If your child dies, do you go on "The Today Show" to talk about it? That bothers me.
MURRAY: I think that was the best thing they could have done because prior to this, they had been portrayed very bad. And I think they come across as endearing in that interview. They come across as sincere and they don`t come across as two people who stole their child`s money.
I think it`s more so what Shavar said, they mismanaged -- they were ill-equipped to be handling that amount of money at that time.
ROSS: And he was upset about that. He was upset about that.
BEHAR: Yes.
I mean, you know, they say life is for the living. These two people are still alive and they`ve been vilified in the press.
MURRAY: Yes.
ROSS: Yes.
BEHAR: And there was all this controversy that he was estranged from his parents. Everybody is speculating why was he estranged from them, it made them look bad. So they want to fix that. I don`t blame them for that.
MICKEY SHERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, he used to say -- I used to listen to the Howard Stern show he would always in the interview, he`d be interviewed he would always diss his parents for throwing away his money and mismanaging him.
BEHAR: Yes.
ROSS: And Joy I was going to also say that --
BEHAR: He did say that.
ROSS: -- he did know that he was adopted. He did know that he was adopted. I don`t have the facts straight --
BEHAR: What else did they tell him.
MURRAY: They said at 5 years old.
ROSS: From 5 years old.
BEHAR: At five years old.
MURRAH: But can we talk about the monkey in the room.
ROSS: But still, I stand corrected --
MURRAY: The monkey in the room is -- the monkey in the room is that - -
BEHAR: The elephant.
MURRAY: The elephant in the room.
MURRAY: Same difference. Everybody is saying that Gary Coleman is beloved in death and in life he wasn`t. He wasn`t beloved since he left "Diff`rent Strokes." He was a mean man who attacked a woman for wanting an autograph when he was working as a security guard.
"People" magazine put him on the cover as this loving child star. But in life he wouldn`t have been on the cover of "People" magazine unless he was sleeping with Lindsay Lohan.
So I mean, let`s just deal with the facts of the matter.
BEHAR: Well, the chances of that having had happened haven`t --
MURRAY: Well, in Lindsay`s current state it could have happened.
SHERMAN: It could have been lateral move for Lindsay.
MURRAY: And there would have been a sex tape.
BEHAR: This is turning into a weird conversation. Ok. Thank you, everybody.
Up next, after being charged with -- another great story that I have to deal with -- after being charged with murdering Stephanie Flores, Joran Van Der Sloot now reportedly wants to come clean about Natalee Holloway.
Stick around for the latest on that story.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming up a little later on THE JOY BEHAR SHOW comedy legend Betty White drops by to talk about what it`s like to be at the peak of her career at the tender age of 88.
Now back to Joy.
BEHAR: Joran Van Der Sloot is reportedly so afraid of his Peruvian accommodations that he`s willing to give authorities the location of Natalee Holloway`s body if they send him back to Aruba.
In the meantime, CNN obtains the police transcripts of Van Der Sloot`s confession to the brutal murder of Stephany Flores.
Here with all the latest from Lima, Peru is Jean Casarez, correspondent for "In Session" on TRUTV. Jean, tell me what is in the transcripts.
JEAN CASAREZ, CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Joy, there is so much in the transcript. There`s so many pages. Last night we spent hours. Mida Cuevas (ph) my producer translates it, We worked together. I`m typing.
In essence, this altercation, according to Joran Van Der Sloot, began because of an e-mail he got on Facebook in the early morning hours of May 30th five years to the date that Natalee Holloway went missing. The Facebook e-mail said, "I am going to kill you mongoloid."
So that then emulated (ph) into a conversation and he said that he talked to Stephany, about five years ago he was accused in the Natalee Holloway case. He says, from there that she hit him with her fist on the left-hand side of his temple right here. He said that then, she was on the bed. He got on top of her, strangled her with his hands. Threw her on the floor, she wasn`t dead. So he took the shirt he was wearing and suffocated her.
He said at the time I was thinking about what I was doing and I was questioning why am I doing this? But I kept doing it.
BEHAR: wow. You know, there`s now video which we`re watching as I`m speaking to you, some of it, of him going into the -- getting the guy from the desk to come up and open the door while he`s got two cups of coffee. What do you think he`s doing there? Is he establishing an alibi or something? What`s going on here?
CASAREZ: I think you`re exactly right. I think you`re exactly right. I have studied that video and studied it.
Here`s what he says in the confession. He says I don`t know why I went to get the coffee. I don`t know why I did that. He alludes to the fact that she`s already dead in the room.
But you see that he goes in with the coffee, he comes out, he knocks. Nobody answers, of course. Then he gets like a maid to let him in.
Legally, as an attorney, I would say he`s trying to show someone he`s taking two cups of coffee in for two people in a room that are going to drink it. But he says in the confession, he doesn`t know why he did that at that time.
BEHAR: Can we assume that he knows that the camera is on him?
CASAREZ: He sure looks like he`s looking for a camera, doesn`t he? He looks up right where that surveillance camera is. And whether he saw it or not, we don`t know. But definitely it appears as though he wanted a witness at that time.
BEHAR: So then after the guy or the woman opens the door for him and he goes in there, shouldn`t he at that point have called 911, or the equivalent in Peru. Instead he leaves the room and just leaves the country after that and tries to escape, right?
CASAREZ: that`s right. And you know, when he was first arrested, there was an Interpol police report we got hold of where he said that armed robbers came in the room, held them all at knifepoint, gunpoint and that`s what happened to them. That was right when he was arrested in Chile.
BEHAR: ok. That is very interesting information. There`s a report also that he wants to come clean about the location of Natalee Holloway`s body. What do you know about that?
CASAREZ: Well, he says in the confession, at the end of the confession, they say now is there anything else you want us to know? And he said, yes, I know where the remains are of Natalee Holloway. I will only tell Aruban authorities.
But joy, several times in that confession, he talked about being extradited to Aruba. He keeps sort of planting that idea. So you see exactly what he wants to do.
BEHAR: Ok. Thank you very much, Jean.
Now I want to bring in my other guests: form FBI agent and profiler Candice Delong, criminal defense attorney Mickey Sherman and with us by phone, Natalee Holloway`s aunt Linda Allison.
Candice, let me start with you. Van Der Sloot reportedly told police, quote, "I don`t want to be imprisoned in Peru. I`m afraid I will be killed." Should he be afraid and should we care?
CANDICE DELONG, FORMER FBI AGENT: Well, yes, I believe he probably should be afraid. He`s right to be afraid.
Should we care? I can`t work up much sympathy for him. I`m not sure Peru has any reason in the world to cooperate with his request.
BEHAR: Linda, he seems to be using Natalee as a bargaining chip. I think that -- he`s saying if I tell you where Natalee is, then they`ll be lenient with him and maybe send him back to Aruba where the punishment won`t be as horrifying to him. Apparently Peru has some very strict prisons.
What do you -- how do you handle that? How does your family handle that?
LINDA ALLISON, NATALEE HOLLOWAY`S AUNT: I don`t really expect him to make a confession. He`s had so many opportunities. He has used it to his advantage to try to gain money. And maybe he is -- maybe going to come clean this time but I think I guard my emotions and just don`t expect it to happen that way.
BEHAR: Ok. Ok guys. More on this story in just a minute, don`t go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: I`m back with my panel. We`re talking about the Joran Van Der Sloot case. Mickey, you know, his private lawyer quit today. What makes a lawyer quit a case?
SHERMAN: It`s not what you think. We don`t usually quit because we think they`re guilty. We always think they`re guilty. Sometimes it also is destructive to your practice because everyone then thinks you`re too busy and you`re too expensive.
But I`ll tell you what changed my mind? It`s that scene we`re seeing right now that b-roll (ph) of Van Der Sloot coming out of the building. This community, they look like a Transylvania villagers chasing the Frankenstein monster up the mountain with pitchforks. There`s very little difference between people`s minds sometimes between the defendant and the lawyer.
BEHAR: So you think the lawyer got out because he`s scared?
SHERMAN: Yes.
BEHAR: Oh, boy.
SHERMAN: Yes. And you know what -- I don`t blame him. I don`t blame him. Why would you want to be vilified in your home state in your hometown in your home country because we all know he`s guilty? That`s what everyone is going to say. If he does anything good for the guy, they`re going to kill the lawyer.
BEHAR: Well, he has another lawyer, a Dutch lawyer. I don`t know what the status on that is.
SHERMAN: The Aruba people aren`t as vitriolic as the Peruvian people.
BEHAR: Well, because he killed a Peruvian girl.
SHERMAN: Understandably. But in Aruba, you didn`t see those mobs out there.
BEHAR: No.
SHERMAN: Justified, but, this last scene was scary as all hell.
BEHAR: I mean -- and also, you know, her father is a powerful guy in Peru. That`s another reason.
SHERMAN: But then again, how often does a Peruvian lawyer get to be a high profile lawyer? How many high-profile lawyers are there in Peru?
BEHAR: How do I know? I`m not from Peru. Really -- what kind of question is that?
SHERMAN: So it dictates that he should take the case. But I think he`s scared.
BEHAR: It`s the land of the Incas. I think he can come up with a good lawyer.
SHERMAN: Exactly.
BEHAR: Candice, there are a lot of different stories about Natalee, and then this extortion plot. He seems to me, sadistic towards the Holloway family, this guy.
DELONG: I agree complete. He has no empathy, I think, for anyone. And this whole extortion thing, this federal case, I don`t know where it`s going, but I think it`s indicative of the type of personality that he is. A sociopath feels nothing for their victims, and they frequently taunt and do things like this to their victims` families after the victim`s dead.
BEHAR: Yes. Linda, does your family feel like it`s being victimized all over again by Van Der Sloot?
ALLISON: Well, we have, unfortunately, with this latest situation. You know, you can`t blame Beth for trying because any mother would be haunted for the rest of their life not trying to turn every stone to try to get an answer --
BEHAR: Of course.
ALLISON: -- from him. But the boy does not have a conscience.
BEHAR: No.
ALLISON: And he has shown that over and over with different things that he`s done for the last five years.
BEHAR: Are we any closer to finding out what happened to Natalee, do you think?
ALLISON: Our only hope would be because he is fearful for his life, would be at this time where things are very critical for him, that he might go ahead and confess what he did with Natalee.
BEHAR: But I don`t know if you can believe him. He lies constantly about it. He might have -- forgive me for being so graphic -- he might have disposed of the girl`s body in the ocean. We`ll never know if he`s lying or not just to save his butt.
SHERMAN: He`s devoid of any credibility. He even came out with two BS stories on this latest murder (INAUDIBLE).
BEHAR: Exactly. So it`s a very, very difficult position. I really feel very bad for your family, Linda.
So thank you, everybody, for this update.
Betty White is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: Over the past 63 years, she`s received 18 Emmy award nominations and taken the statue home six times. And earlier this year, the 88-year-old became the oldest person to host "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE." if only she was able to make something of herself. Her new show "HOT IN CLEVELAND" premieres on TV land on Wednesday. With me now is the legendary Betty White. Betty, I`m so happy to have you here. But how does it feel when someone refers to you as the legendary Betty White?
BETTY WHITE, ACTRESS: I just laugh. Have I got you fooled.
BEHAR: Why? You are, though, in a way, you are.
WHITE: Only longevity. Age has its privileges, believe me, Joy.
BEHAR: I do know it.
WHITE: You wouldn`t know that yet, but you`ll find out that you can get away with murder at this age that you couldn`t earlier on.
BEHAR: I know. You get to say all sorts of bawdy blue things in your career now.
WHITE: I`ve been doing that all my life. But they excuse you for things that they didn`t used to excuse you for as far as performances.
BEHAR: But you know the thing about you, Betty. It`s not just age. You also have had a lot of hits. You`ve been in very successful shows. You`re not -- it`s not just longevity. I have to say.
WHITE: I am the luckiest old broad on two feet if the truth were known. It`s -- but it all goes back "MARY TYLER MOORE," "GOLDEN GIRLS." actors love to take the credit. We couldn`t do it without the writers.
BEHAR: Of course.
WHITE: The writers are the stars of every really successful sitcom.
BEHAR: Well you know I`ve watched some of the clips of you. You have a great delivery. So did Bea Arthur have a great delivery and Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty. You girls all had delivery. You were all funny, naturally funny. The writing, of course, was great. But you could take credit.
WHITE: But the characters were all so well defined. We were like four points on a compass. And the writers would throw a situation in the middle of the table, and the audience knew our characters so well, they couldn`t wait to see how each of us would react to that given situation.
BEHAR: That`s right.
WHITE: That`s writing.
BEHAR: That`s true. But you played also "MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW," from the "GOLDEN GIRLS."
WHITE: Neighborhood nymphomaniac.
(LAUGHTER)
BEHAR: My favorite on that show was when you would kick the stove door shut with your leg.
WHITE: That was a total accident. That was -- it was an ad lib because it was in the pilot. And there was a souffle in the oven. And of course, the happy homemaker was protective of her souffle. And Phyllis came in and so she had opened the oven door and all that. Well, we had this open oven door between us. The whole scene had to play out with that. And Jay Sandridge who was our director said, we can`t get the door, you know, shut. Kidding. I was horsing around on the set. I said, well, we can do this. He said, leave it in. So that`s how that ended.
BEHAR: See that`s a comic choice that you made. That`s because you`re funny. Let`s look a clip of the show. I want to show everybody a clip of the show.
WHITE: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WHITE: I think a man should be viral and macho and just reaping with masculinity.
(LAUGHTER)
Thank you, god. Do you have anything with hair?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
BEHAR: You guys had so much fun on that show.
WHITE: Oh it was wonderful.
BEHAR: It was must-see-TV every week.
WHITE: OH it was just heaven. But again, if we have a new one coming out, "HOT IN CLEVELAND" with Valerie Bertinelli and Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves. And it has that funny feeling of it works. You know? So we`ll see what happens.
BEHAR: You know sitcoms are like marriages in a way. Sometimes they just seem to hit it off like two people.
WHITE: And other times you can`t tell. But we never know until John Q. Public gets hold of it and sees what they think.
BEHAR: That`s true.
WHITE: Even if the critics like it, it`s John Q. Public that makes it work.
BEHAR: It`s John Q. Nielsen is who it is.
WHITE: Yes, well that has a lot to do with it. I love your set.
BEHAR: Do you love it -
WHITE: It`s so pretty, Joy.
BEHAR: Thank you very much. But you know it seems as though -- I decorated it myself.
WHITE: I know of course you did.
BEHAR: I threw pillows around. No but anyway, women of a certain age -- I won`t say what the number is exactly -- seem to be having a renaissance in the industry. You know, you have Liza Minnelli was here a few weeks ago. She`s in her 60s now and doing wonderfully. Joan Rivers, they just did a documentary about her. And she`s still going strong. What do you think is going on?
WHITE: I don`t know, but as long as you feel this good and as long as you enjoy what you do, I don`t care if I`m 88 1/2 now, I don`t care if get to about 1 100 1/2, I`m just - you know, until they stop asking me.
BEHAR: That`s right. Is there anything that you haven`t done -- I mean, you`ve done a lot of sit com. Is there any dream after this sit com to do something else?
WHITE: I get a question a lot. And I only have one stock answer. And it`s Robert Redford.
BEHAR: That`s who you want to do?
WHITE: Yes. That`s exactly right.
BEHAR: OK. Well, I can relate to that.
WHITE: Not too shabby.
BEHAR: No, he`s cute. Now the "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE" thing that happened to you recently, so phenomenally interesting. There was a Facebook petition going around. And everybody caught on to it. Tell me how that all went down and how it made you feel.
WHITE: I didn`t even know what Facebook was.
BEHAR: Right.
WHITE: And people would tell me that there was this -- whatever was going on. I still don`t understand Facebook. What was going on. And the next thing you know, they asked me to do the show. Well, I had turned it down about three times earlier on because it`s such a New York thing. And I`m, you know, so California that I thought, well, that won`t work.
BEHAR: What do you mean? Why do you say that?
WHITE: Well, I`d feel like a fish out of water.
BEHAR: But funny is funny. What`s the difference which coast it`s on?
WHITE: I guess over the years when I was doing Jack Paar show and Johnny Carson and all those shows, they would say, oh, you`re from California and it was sort of a lookdown or a putdown. I`m like I`m not going to go through that. Who needs that?
BEHAR: That`s interesting.
WHITE: But when I got there, it`s so beautifully organized. It really is.
BEHAR: Well, after all these years. They`re on for almost 40 years.
WHITE: Doing things as fast as they are, they better be.
BEHAR: They better have it at this point. Here you are on "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE." let`s look at a tape here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WHITE: My carrot cake is obviously legendary. But if there is one thing I`m known for, it`s my muffin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Florence, there`s a tangy taste in this muffin is that a cherry?
WHITE: No, no, my muffin hasn`t had a cherry since 1939.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: The double entendres were flying around in that sketch, huh? But you always -- in your whole career, I said before that you were a little bit bawdy but you always sort of got up to the line and never crossed it. Really, even that.
WHITE: Well I grew up -- I was an only child with a mother and a father who had a delicious senses of humor. And they -- the rule was always, dad would bring home jokes from the office, and he`d say, honey, you can take that one to school. I wouldn`t take that one to school. They never explained the jokes to me. But the rule in our house was that if it was bawdy, it had to be funny enough to warrant the bawdiness.
BEHAR: That`s right.
WHITE: And if it was just bawdy for bawdy`s sake, forget it.
BEHAR: And I was reading that you were nervous about hosting. Well I would have been, too. It`s live television. Everybody there is running around. They`re all kids. That`s nerve racking.
WHITE: It was the cue cards that worried me the most. Because I memorize everything. And you can`t memorize that because they`ll change it in the middle of a script. So you had to read the cue cards. But I hate that look where you`re talking to someone here and then you look over at the cue cards and my eyes go back. I just hate that. Well, the cue card man, Wally, is a genius. He said stick with the cards. Well, when you`re working with Tina Fey, it is awfully hard not to look at Tina Fey. So I did, I stuck with the cards. And he was right. They have it down to a system.
BEHAR: That`s interesting so you just followed his advice and you were fine.
WHITE: And I stayed with the card. And when Tina right here, it`s so hard not to look at this lovely girl.
BEHAR: I know. OK Betty, we have much more to talk about. Stay right we`ll be back in a minute with Betty White.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: I`m back with the incomparable Betty White. You know, your new show is kind of like the "GOLDEN GIRLS" only you have - you know you`re with Valerie and these other -- who else in the show?
WHITE: Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli.
BEHAR: That`s right but it`s about single friends living together.
WHITE: Well, the girls rent the house that I`ve been the caretaker of for years, and their plane had an emergency landing in Cleveland. And they were on their way to Paris to see if they can get a little action. Well, when they`re walking through the airport, the guys were all sort of hitting on them. They say, why did we spend all that money to go to Paris? Why don`t we stay here in Cleveland? And we`re hot in Cleveland.
BEHAR: Do we have a clip of the show? Let`s look at that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VALERIE BERTINELLI: Hi. I`m Melanie. I`m leasing the place.
WHITE: I`ve been the caretaker of this house for 50 years. But you can kick me out.
BERTINELLI: I wouldn`t --
WHITE: No worries. If you can escape from the Nazis, you can handle anything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: Now, you know, you also go on a date with Carl Reiner. He`s hot, Carl Reiner. Right? Is that part of one of the shows?
WHITE: Oh yes, oh yes, one of the shows. He`s coming back. He`s going to do a couple more shows with us. I`m delighted about that.
BEHAR: Yes, he`s a cutie, Carl Reiner.
WHITE: He`s a delight. I`ve known him for years because he and my husband Allen Ludden were in the army together.
BEHAR: Oh is that right?
WHITE: My Allen was his captain. So Carl calls me his captain-in- law.
BEHAR: tell me about your relationship with Allen Ludden.
WHITE: That was just about the best thing that could happen to anybody. When you find Mr. Right, and we had -- we were like the two oldest fools in the world. We just adored each other.
BEHAR: Where did you meet?
WHITE: On "password."
BEHAR: Did he come on to you?
WHITE: Well, we met on "Password" then our agents booked us into summer stock on Cape Cod. We did a show together. By the second morning, it wasn`t "good morning, Betty." It was, "will you marry me?"
BEHAR: Really?
WHITE: And it took me a year to get smart. I wasted a whole year we could have been together. But we missed 18 years by three days. They were the best 18 years of my life.
BEHAR: What stopped you from getting married? You had been married before, I take it?
WHITE: Yes, I had been married before. And I had no interest in being married. He lived in New York and I lived in California. No way will I go to New York. No way will I leave California. No way will I marry you. He was a pretty good salesman, I must say.
BEHAR: But was he funny? I bet he was funny.
WHITE: Oh he was delicious and silly. Funny and also silly, which nobody expected Mr. "password" to be. He was just silly.
BEHAR: Well he had a twinkle in his eye. You could see that. But you never remarried after that. It`s been how many years since he passed away?
WHITE: Twenty-five and --
BEHAR: And that was it.
WHITE: When you had the best, who needs the rest? You know, it`s that simple.
BEHAR: That`s sweet. You don`t get any crushes besides the Robert Redford obsession, is there anybody else?
WHITE: Well, that`s an obsession. I think everybody deserves one good obsession.
BEHAR: Now, let`s talk a little about your relationship with Sandra Bullock, who we talk about Sandra all the time because of that horrible marriage she had to that Jesse James character.
WHITE: Oh, she handled it so beautifully.
BEHAR: She did. She`s a classy lady.
WHITE: On MTV the other night, she said, instead of avoiding the subject, she said, don`t worry about me. I`m fine. And she is. But everybody wants to delve in what happened and he`s such a bastard and all this. But let`s face it, that`s her business and their business, not mine, not yours, not anybody else`s.
BEHAR: Well you know Betty, when you`re a talk show host, it`s all my business.
WHITE: You`re in the business.
BEHAR: I`m in the business business. Were you shocked by the scandal? Everybody seemed to be shocked.
WHITE: Well, I think particularly Sandy. I think so. But those -- she`s such a class act. I cannot tell you. We fell so in love when we did "The Proposal" together. She`s unlike anybody I know in this business. Not only a talent, not only gorgeous, but she just as a human being, there`s no movie star about her at all. But she`s just somebody you want to know for the rest of your life.
BEHAR: Right. She`s very sweet. Now, Sean Hayes is the EPL, the executive producer of your new show. The actor Sean Hayes.
WHITE: Yes.
BEHAR: That`s an interesting departure for him. He`s not usually the executive producer.
WHITE: Well, who knows?
BEHAR: There you go, you know he was in the middle of this controversy recently because a guy in "Newsweek" wrote an article saying that actors who are out, gay actors who are out of the closet -
WHITE: Right.
BEHAR: Could not play straight roles because people wouldn`t believe that they were straight once they were out and gay. What do you think -- do you have any ideas about that? You`ve been in the business a long time.
WHITE: Well, I mean a lot of the people that we didn`t know were gay and turned out to be gay still went on -- and look, Anne Heche was a good example. She and Ellen DeGeneres were close. And she played some of these romantic roles after she came out of the closet. It doesn`t -- I think people are going to worry about how they look at things, not what somebody else does.
BEHAR: It seems to work differently for women, though. Because two women in a lesbian relationship, men like that. But -- they do. They like to watch that and think about it.
WHITE: Really?
BEHAR: Yes. They do. They love it.
WHITE: Could have fooled me. I`ve been straight all my life. Gee, I`ve been wasting all this time.
(LAUGHTER)
BEHAR: See? That`s your next career.
WHITE: I don`t think so. I don`t think so.
BEHAR: But when it comes to a man, all those year, I don`t know that Rock Hudson, he was the heart throb. Let`s say he was out and everybody knew he was a homosexual, I`m not sure he would have had the career. That`s what the point of this article was.
WHITE: Actually it was his dear friend, his beloved friend Doris Day who inadvertently outed him. She invited him to a show she was doing up in Cacarmel (ph). So by then he had AIDS. So the minute he came on camera, then everybody knew. And Doris just couldn`t believe that she had been -- you know, a party to that. But Rock was - was -- everybody kind of knew his situation, but it didn`t seem to hold back his career.
BEHAR: No, no but --
WHITE: Cary Grant, the same thing.
BEHAR: Oh he was gay, too?
WHITE: Oh, I don`t know.
BEHAR: Yes, you know something, Betty.
WHITE: No, I don`t know. I never had him -- I never had it.
(LAUGHTER)
BEHAR: All right. We`ve got even more chatting to do with you. She`s just warming up. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: I`m back with Betty White. Now, Betty, I know that you now know what Facebook is right?
WHITE: I found out the hard way.
BEHAR: OK. Now, people sent us questions for you. You the people on Facebook, on my Facebook, they sent some questions for you.
WHITE: OK. Shoot.
BEHAR: Here`s one question -- isn`t this interesting? Would you ever play a lesbian? The first question out of the box.
WHITE: I might play one and lose -- no, I mean, I think there`s so much, you know, we`ve had kind of an overdose of that subject for a while. I think I`m old enough now I can make my choices about what I play and what I don`t play.
BEHAR: Right and you don`t see any interest in that. How do you stay so sexy after many years?
WHITE: Oh, it isn`t easy.
BEHAR: It`s a burden.
WHITE: Well, that`s the fun -- maybe the funniest line you`ve said all day. I`m not what you might call sexy, but I`m romantic. Let`s put it that way.
BEHAR: You never saw yourself as a sexy person.
WHITE: Uh-uh.
BEHAR: No.
WHITE: Uh-uh.
BEHAR: But what do you think about plastic surgery in the industry? I don`t think you`ve had any.
WHITE: Gravity has taken over. So there`s not much I can do about it.
BEHAR: It`s -- everybody does it now. Heidi Montag, this girl had ten surgeries in one day from her top to bottom. Girls are going crazy with this stuff.
WHITE: My problem with that, is you`ll go to a women`s press conference or something like that, and old friends will come up and I kind of don`t recognize them. I recognize the voice. But I don`t -- all of a sudden, there`s this whole new face that I don`t know who that is.
BEHAR: But you`re lucky. Have you a very pretty face. You don`t really need it. You never probably need it. You`re pretty.
WHITE: Well, gravity has taken over.
BEHAR: Somebody`s got to play an older person on television.
WHITE: That`s right. Not me. But I mean somebody has to.
BEHAR: Somebody, not you. And where do you get your dimples done? Someone wants to know.
WHITE: You mean, the ones here?
BEHAR: Yes.
WHITE: I have no idea.
BEHAR: Those are genetic.
WHITE: My dad sort of had clipped -- they`re not dimples any more. They`re wrinkles. You know they used to be dimples. Look who`s talking.
BEHAR: Will you be writing a tell-all book?
WHITE: I`ve written five books. One of which is an autobiography, which is being reissued.
BEHAR: You`re so hot.
WHITE: They`re bringing it out again, as a matter of fact. I`m in the middle of my sixth book, which is about animals at the Los Angeles zoo.
BEHAR: The animal thing. That`s nice that you`re such an animal advocate. Rue McClanahan, rest her soul, she was also an animal person, right?
WHITE: Yes, she was. And god love Rue, she was everything as far as a friend is concerned. We had such fun.
BEHAR: You were close. How did you girls get along on "THE GOLDEN GIRLS." people ask me that about THE VIEW.
WHITE: Oh we adore each other.
BEHAR: You got along great.
WHITE: You can`t work that closely together and not become a family. I hear these horror stories about series where they don`t speak.
BEHAR: Yes, yes.
WHITE: You know, off camera. How do you do comedy if you`re not speaking to each other.
BEHAR: It`s not easy. You have to get along.
WHITE: How do you get along with the girls on --
BEHAR: We do pretty well over there. I`ve been there for 13 year. This group gets along very nicely.
WHITE: Which ones don`t you like?
BEHAR: I`ll talk about that later because we`ve got to go. We`ve got to go. Sorry, I can`t answer that, we`re out of time. "HOT IN CLEVELAND" premieres Wednesday at 10:00 p.m. on TV land. Good NIGHT, everybody. Thank you, Betty.
WHITE: Thank you.
BEHAR: So nice to have you here.
WHITE: it was wonderful.
BEHAR: Everyone loves you. And I love you, too.
END
