The scene in Sue Ann's bedroom was MADE by the fact that everyone kept looking up, fixing their hair, and straightening their clothes, without us ever being SHOWN anything. Whatever they paid the writers on that series, it wasn't enough.
Such a SWEET & giving lady. Once, at the SAG Awards show, I went to shake her hand to tell her how happy I was she won the Lifetime Achievement Award that year, and instead of shaking she took my hand and kissed the back of it!
Giving Betty White the role of Sue Ann Nivens was the most brilliant piece of casting in television history, because it was as if her entire career prior to the Mary Tyler Moore Show was a setup that character paid off. I don't think it can possibly be as funny for younger people now as it was at the time, because it was such a complete revelation. I'm sure it's still funny, but it lacks the extra punch it got from the gasp you let out at seeing someone who'd seemed like the literal embodiment of sweetness and light serving pure, delicious evil.
Mrs. Leachman's comment about Sue Ann take up the "darling blonde" position makes a lot of sense as I'm working through Season 6. Season 4's "The Lars Affair" set up Phyllis and Sue Ann as foils, but Sue Ann began to adopt more of Phyllis' brittleness through Season 5 while still evolving into her own character. Really excellent advice and execution.
I can't believe four people passed on from MTM in 2021. It was like a roll call in heaven for all these greats to be together again. Poor Ted was waiting the longest for the others to arrive.