The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) presented its Life Achievement Award to actress Betty White on Sunday night.
The award honored White's decades of work on the large and small screens, as well as her humanitarian work, the SAG said.
"I know that a lot of people really find Betty White inspiring, " said actress Sandra Bullock, who presented White the award, during the SAG Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. "I mean, she's been working as an actor in an industry for more than six decades in a business that doesn't exactly value getting older. There's a lot to admire."
"Me, I find Betty White annoying," she joked. "I'm sorry, it's true. Betty, you make me feel bad about myself. You make me feel like a slacker."
White received an extended standing ovation from the star-studded crowd at the Shrine Auditorium, where the ceremony was held.
"Seventy-one years ago when I sang on an experimental thing that was called television, who would have dreamed it would culminated in an evening like this?" she said.
"Back when I first started, it would never have even occurred to me to imagine such a thing as this moment," she said. "And I still can't believe I'm standing here. This is the highest point of my entire professional life.
To the Screen Actors Guild, to each and every one of you, thank you from the bottom of my heart."
Although White, who turned 88 on Sunday, made an early name for herself in Hollywood on radio, she broke into television on the series "Life with Elizabeth," for which she received the first of her six Emmy Awards.
White later became a late-night television regular, making appearances with Jack Paar, Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson. She also was a regular guest on game shows, including "Match Game" and "To Tell the Truth."
She also appeared on the game show "Password," where she met Allen Ludden, the show's host, who later became her future husband. They married in June 1963. Ludden, who died in June 1981, was posthumously awarded a star
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, next to White's star.
But her stardom skyrocketed when she made a guest spot as Sue Anne Nivens on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." That guest spot quickly transitioned
into a regular role on the classic series. She won back-to-back Emmys for best supporting actress for her portrayal of the host of fictional Minneapolis television station WJM's "The Happy Homemaker Show."
White also had a recurring role on the comedy "Mama's Family," but again became a regular in American living rooms with her role as Rose Nylund on "The Golden Girls," for which she won a lead-actress Emmy.