Betty White's 'very last word out of her mouth' was calling for late husband Allen Ludden, her colleague Vicki Lawrence reveals

Betty White's last word was calling out the name of her late husband Allen Ludden prior to her death at 99 on Friday, according to her colleague Vicki Lawrence.

Lawrence, 72, told Page Six on Monday that she contacted friend Carol Burnett, 88, in the wake of White's passing.

Lawrence said, 'I texted Carol and said, "This just sucks. I hate this. It’s just horrible to see the people you love so much go away."'

She continued: 'Carol wrote back and said, "I know, I know. I spoke to Betty’s assistant, who was with her when she passed, and she said the very last word out of her mouth was Allen." How sweet is that? I said, "That is so sweet. God, I hope that’s true. For all of us, I really hope it’s true, a lovely thought."'

White, who was set to turn 100 years old January 17, was wed to Ludden from 1963 until his 1981 death from stomach cancer at the age of 63.

Lawrence was the star of the NBC series Mama’s Family, which ran from 1983-1990; White played the role of Ellen Harper Jackson on 16 episodes of the show.

'Well, you didn’t really work with her, you just had a good time,' she said. 'Carol called it "playing in the sandbox," and I think that’s exactly what it was. Betty was just the perfect playmate.'

Lawrence described White as 'incredibly professional,' adding, 'I don’t remember her ever not being prepared or ever messing up her lines.'

Lawrence recalled White's loving nature with a story about how she once arrived an hour late to the set because she saved a pair of golden retrievers, 'because that’s what [she] would do.

People in the throes of death do not sleep.

Dying in one’s sleep seems as if it would be less and less likely the older one gets. Unless, I guess, you are one of the lucky ones who grow old without accumulating certain kinds of common infirmities.

Is the idea that one just runs out of gas?

I’m not sure about this idea.

More often than not, I would think, something takes you. The body naturally fights, but is overcome. This may be more common now that the tendency is to load senior citizens up with many different kinds of modern medicines.

Certainly those who are currently suffering and dying from adverse effects from vexxationation are not dying in their sleep. There is nothing natural about that kind of death. Death comes as a result of acute symptoms. The body will surely fight it. At the end, though, there will likely be no soothing sleep.

I was with my grandparents when they passed, my stepmom when she passed…. None of them said anything…. My grandfather was 89…he looked at everyone visiting him in hospice and seemed to nod off to sleep. My grandmother 93 seemed to be waiting for me before taking her last breath and nodding off to sleep…. My stepmom 75 had not been verbal for the last year of her life due to ALZ…my siblings and I stayed with her until 10 pm and she passed 15 minutes after we left her to sleep. Passing on is not a hollywood movie… it is actually still, silent, reverent, intense… and then the grinding sense of loss and sweetness of remembrance.
I was not with my Dad when he passed away after caring for him for several years…my sister was with him and he told me not to come and care for him and my stepmom because she was with him…
I agreed to come the next afternoon with dinner and when I arrived found he had passed away alone and my stepmom was just laying on the sofa unaware. I have great sorrow that he passed alone…. my sister should have told me he was in distress, but I know he was Missouri mule stubborn and did not want to die in a hospital.
Betty White was the ultimate Hollywood liberal, but all liberal and conservatives alike loved her. Why her spokespersons choose to put out a load of BS about whether she was boosted or not is disgraceful and serves nothing other than the same “politicalization” of her death that they say she would not want. Best thing is they just stop and be truthful… even if she did receive the booster no one knows if it hastened her death. Leave it to God….and let her rest in peace.

Very well said. No one in my family spoke before they passed either. They were all unconscious, and I wasn't there for all of their passings.

I never knew any of my grandparents. They'd all died before I was born in 1947. My father died first in 1978. I lived 2 1/2 hours away from everyone, and had been to visit him in the hospital two days before he died. My brother was the one who called to let me know that he had passed. My father had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and they attempted to take the lobe the tumor was in, but his blood pressure kept going so low during surgery, that they sewed him back up, and planned to do cobalt treatments. The next day he had a stroke, and was in a coma for a week. When he woke up, he couldn't speak, and was paralyzed on one side. He had been in the hospital a total of 33 days. The day they were going to move him to a nursing home, he passed away.

My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1990. I had just visited her in the hospital the day before. When I left she was sitting on the end of the bed eating her supper. Early the next morning, my sister (2nd oldest), called me to tell me that she had passed. According to the nurses, my mother was very restless, but not actually conscious. When the nurses saw my sister heading into the hospital from the window in her room, they told her that her daughter had just arrived, and she calmed right down. Once my sister was in the room, she told my mother it was alright for her to go...and she died peacefully. The staff allowed my mother to remain in her room until the rest of us arrived, so we could have some time with her.

My brother was the next to go. That was in 1995. He was only 51. He'd suffered a massive heart attack at home, and was on a ventilator. I had been at the hospital for only a short time when the doctor's came in, to take him off the ventilator. They hustled us out of the room, and it was just a short while after that they called us back in so we could be with him when he passed.

My 2nd oldest sister passed in 2011. She also had lung cancer. Notice a pattern here? Everyone in my family smoked but me, and I'm the last one left. My sister had been in hospice care since July 1st, and since we knew it was terminal, I had to clear out her apartment by August 31st, as her lease was up, and I also had to get rid of her leased vehicle. She'd been unconscious for well over a week. On September 1st, I spent the day with her at the home, then left around 5 or so, to check into the hotel I was staying in, and then get some supper. I'd just taken a shower, and gone to bed, when the home called me to tell me that I needed to get back there as they believed she would be passing that night. At 12:32 a.m., on September 2nd, she passed. It was her 69th birthday. We always believed that she had waited until her birthday to leave us, because she didn't want to be younger than our mother was when she passed at 69.

My oldest sister had been an alcoholic and spent most of her adult life in supervised care. She was suffering from dementia. I would visit her when I could, and take her out to lunch then shopping. I had planned to visit her for Christmas in 2014, at the new home she had been transferred to. When I called to let them know when I would be visiting, they told me she was in the hospital. She apparently had suffered a stroke, and was unresponsive. That was on a Thursday. When I called the hospital, they told me they were going to insert a feeding tube into her the next morning, but to be advised, she might not make it through the surgery. That afternoon I called the hospital, and they put me through to ICU. My sister had already coded twice, and while I was on the phone, she'd coded again. For some reason, my sister had previously said she wanted to be resuscitated. She didn't have a health care proxy, and refused to name anyone, even me when asked about it. The ICU nurse put me on hold, to see what was happening. When she returned she asked me what I wanted them to do. I told her to let her go. She died alone, and I've always felt terrible that I wasn't there with her at the time.

I'm 74. Both sons live away from me. One is only 2 hours away in Troy, New York. My youngest lives in Indiana. To be honest, I don't want them to have to sit and watch me die. My only goal in life now, is not outlive them.

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