The crazy part is that Betty was the oldest actress and she played the youngest girl and out lived all of them. Sophia was the youngest and died first.
Betty White was one of the nominees for the Emmy Awards in 1951, and her television career actually began in 1939, three months after graduating high school, singing on an experimental television show.
She did not want to portray a dumb blonde on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, so she was cast as the man eating "Happy Homemaker" Sue Ann Nivens while 24 year old Georgia Engle portrayed ditzy blonde Georgette Franklin Baxter. (Engle herself died in early 2019 at just age 70. Because she was a devout Christian Scientist, her cause of death is unknown.)
Four regular cast survivors are left from MTM, including Betty. Burly curmudgeon Ed Asner remains extremely active at age 91, Gavin MacLeod is a Christian activist at age 89, and the great Cloris Leachman (a Miss America contestant in 1946) continues to work at age 94. It's actually all the younger regular cast members from that series who are no longer with us. (By sharp contrast, veterans of the Dick Van Dyke show have been extremely long lived, including Dick himself, now at 95.)
