If You Ask Me (and of Course You Won't)

Betty White's sixth book is a collection of personal essays organized thematically rather than chronologically, covering her career in show business, her relationships, her passion for animals, and her reflections on aging, loss, and gratitude. Written when White was 89, the book opens with a brief foreword in which she declares that writing is her favorite activity.

The first section addresses aging, health, and the body. White argues that growing older should not be cause for complaint if one has good health, noting small upsides such as people assuming your experience makes you wiser. She credits her mother, Tess White, with a lasting lesson about self-honesty: A person can lie to anyone, but not to the face staring back in the mirror. White describes her health habits, including weighing herself every morning, maintaining a daily vitamin C regimen inspired by Dr. Linus Pauling's advocacy, and treating crossword puzzles as mental exercise. She attributes her energy to DNA, referencing her father, Horace White, whom her mother nicknamed "Horace the Hummingbird." She discusses the gradual decline of eyesight and hearing, recalling how her husband, Allen Ludden, once left a card under her pillow that read, "If you can't see I love you . . . SQUINT!" She reflects on humor, likening comedic timing to an ear for music, and recalls trying to coach Allen on timing during a scene. He did not take it well, reinforcing her belief that spouses should sometimes avoid working together.

The second section turns to White's professional life. She recounts agreeing to a guest role in a television pilot called Hot in Cleveland, starring Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick, and Jane Leeves, on the condition that she would not continue if the show became a series. TV Land picked it up after only three weeks, making it the network's first original scripted program. Despite her insistence, White agreed first to additional episodes, then to a full 20-episode order, describing herself as having "the backbone of a jellyfish" (37). The show earned two Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nominations and became the top-rated show on cable.

White describes 2010 as a pivotal year. A Snickers commercial aired during the Super Bowl, featuring White being tackled into muddy water. Around the same time, a Facebook campaign launched by a fan named David Matthews gathered nearly half a million supporters urging Saturday Night Live to invite White to host. She had turned down the show three times, fearing she would be out of place on such a New York-oriented program, but her agent, Jeff Witjas, insisted she accept. Producer Lorne Michaels assembled former cast members, including Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, for support. White describes the grueling process: over 40 sketches at the initial table read, narrowed to five or six by showtime, with full costume changes in 90 seconds. The appearance earned her seventh Emmy Award.

At the 2011 SAG Awards, White won Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series. She admits she never prepares acceptance speeches and notes that Allen is always with her in spirit when something special happens. At the previous year's ceremony, she received the SAG Life Achievement Award. Fellow actor George Clooney, the next presenter, quipped that he would like to thank Betty White for her discretion. White also addresses roles she turned down, including As Good as It Gets, because a scene required throwing a dog down a laundry chute, which clashed with her animal-welfare work.

A section on interviews and writing covers White's longhand process. She writes her first draft by hand, then copies it onto fresh paper, making most revisions during the second pass. She credits her mother's beautiful penmanship for instilling her respect for handwriting. She describes the repetitiveness of interview questions, noting that when asked if there was anything she still wanted to do, she blurted out "Robert Redford" after seeing him in Out of Africa. Years later, Redford sent her a congratulatory poem after her SAG Life Achievement Award.

White reflects on her craft and her bond with television. As a child, she wanted to be a forest ranger or zookeeper, but girls were not allowed to hold either position at the time. She traces her love of nature to annual horseback pack trips in the High Sierras with her parents. Decades later, the U.S. Forest Service named her an Honorary Forest Ranger at a ceremony at the Kennedy Center. Receiving the official ranger hat overwhelmed her with memories of her father, who always wore one on vacation. She calls it one of the greatest moments of her life. She discusses stage fright, which she has experienced since third grade and still feels before every appearance. She recounts how the role of Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, written as "an icky-sweet Betty White type," shattered her saccharine image. Sue Ann, the Happy Homemaker, transformed White's career. White also recounts the earliest days of her television work, including co-hosting Hollywood on Television, a live show airing five and a half hours a day, six days a week. After the original host left, she hosted solo for two and a half years. She reflects on television's unique intimacy, noting that people greet her on the street as a friend rather than a celebrity.

The section on love and friendship centers on White's relationship with Allen, who died years before the book was written. She meditates on the isolation of losing a life partner and the sudden absence of someone with whom to share decisions. She reflects on outliving all three of her Golden Girls castmates, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty, despite being the oldest. She describes her close working relationship with Jeff Witjas, who became her agent after her longtime representative Tony Fantozzi retired. Jeff accompanies her on every trip and has become one of her most trusted friends. White illustrates life's circularity through her work on the film You Again with Sigourney Weaver, whose father, Pat Weaver, was the NBC president who gave White her first network job over half a century earlier. White notes she never desired children, believing she could not do justice to both career and motherhood, though she became a loving stepmother to Allen's teenagers.

White devotes considerable space to animals. She recounts underwriting surgery for an injured therapy horse named Butterscotch at BraveHearts Therapeutic Riding and Educational Center in Chicago, then visiting the facility and learning hand signals from trainer Tom Chambers that calmed the horse and led him to follow her back to his stall. She describes visiting Koko, the gorilla taught modified American Sign Language by Dr. Francine "Penny" Patterson at The Gorilla Foundation near Redwood City, California. On her first visit, Koko communicated through signs that she wanted Patterson to unlock a gate, then led White into her living room. On a later visit, Koko named White "Lipstick." White recounts adopting a shih tzu named Panda from the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA); the dog's original buyer had sued a negligent pet store and shut it down, and Panda could not be adopted until the trial ended. She traces her bond with animals to childhood, when her father traded homemade radios for dogs during the Depression. After losing three pets within two months, she received Pontiac, a golden retriever released from Guide Dogs for the Blind's training program for pet placement.

The book closes with reflections on integrity, advice, and mortality. White counsels young performers to treat their profession with respect and never take their opportunities for granted. She observes that growing old does not feel the way one expects; she does not feel 89, she simply is 89. She does not fear death, drawing comfort from her mother's phrase whenever someone died: "Now he knows the secret." She pictures being reunited with Allen, her parents, and all her pets, and the image always makes her laugh.