Betty White says ‘It blows my mind … I can’t get over, at my age, what all’s going on’

Betty White says ‘It blows my mind … I can’t get over, at my age, what all’s going on’

Don’t ask Betty White what she’ll be doing when she hosts “Saturday Night Live” on May 8.

“I don’t have any idea what I’ll be doing,” she says. But she has veto power, and she won’t be doing any dope jokes. “I don’t think dope is funny,” she says.

White, 88, had turned down several opportunities to host “SNL” over the years.

“It’s so intimidating,” she said in a conference call this afternoon with reporters. “It’s so New York, and I’m so California.”

Her agent insisted that the take the hosting job this time. “Between us, I’m scared to death,” she told reporters. (She is pictured at an awards ceremony earlier this month in this photo by Frederick M. Brown of Getty Images.)

White says she usually memorizes her lines or ad libs. “I’ve never been able to work from cue cards,” she says, citing the “SNL” way of putting on a show. “I hope I don’t have to wear my glasses.”



Other golden nuggets from White:

***”Golden Girls” co-star Rue McClanahan is home and “doing fine” after a triple bypass and a stroke.

*** What of pal Sandra Bullock’s private life? “I love her dearly,” White said, then added that Bullock’s private life is her own business.

***Working with CBS’ Craig Ferguson has been the most fun of anything she’s done in her recent spurt of work. “He’s incredible,” White said. “We can’t dare to make eye contact or we crack up.”

***She credits her “rather bawdy sense of humor” to her father, a traveling salesman who brought home jokes and told her which ones she could take to school.

***She loved playing Sue Ann Nivens on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

“She was so rotten. She was the neighborhood nymphomaniac,” White said.

White has enjoyed an outpouring of love this year from the public and her showbiz colleagues. How is she feeling and does she tire of the nonstop adulation?

“It blows my mind,” she said. “I’m blessed with good health, and I’m grateful for it. My energy level is very high. I can’t get over, at my age, what all’s going on. All I can do is roll with the punch and enjoy it thoroughly.”