Betty White turned down the Jack Nicholson hit because of a disturbing scene

If you want to work with great Betty White at any point in her extraordinary 70-year career, the best option was to offer her a television gig. Beginning with the talk show Hollywood on Television in 1949, White made the small screen and living rooms of America her home through sitcoms, game shows and appearances on late-night programs such as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. White was a wonderful presence with killer comedy, her secret weapon being that goofy personality that often seethed with a surprisingly biting wit. You never knew what was going to come out of White’s mouth, and that made her one of the medium’s most unlikely stars (though her presence was once a ranking poison for Bones).

That’s not to say White didn’t make movies. Her first appearance in credits was only in 1962, when she played a US senator from Kansas in Otto Preminger’s wonderful film “Council and Consent”. She did not return to film on screen until the 1998 action film Hard Rain, after which she began working more often in feature films, usually in small supporting roles.

Interestingly, there was an offer on the table for her to return to the movies earlier in a high-profile Jack Nicholson comedy, but she refused for one rather complicated reason.

During one of her many appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” White revealed that she was offered a role in the Oscar-winning film. Film by James L. Brooks “How Good”. This would have brought her back to the movies two years before Heavy Rain, but it was not to be due to White’s objections to the villainy in the script. As White Leno said, “They had this adorable dog, but in one scene a guy walks down the hall and puts the dog in the garbage can.”

What is White’s specific problem with this joke? “Of course he lands on some pillows, and that’s OK,” she said. “But I didn’t want to show that example because you never know what kind of crazy people or kids are going to see it and think I can do that. The director said, ‘The dog’s OK, the dog’s OK!'” But I said, “I just can’t do it.”

White admitted she may have made a career mistake by giving up a hit, but she has no regrets. And that should come as no surprise, because White has been a prominent advocate for the Los Angeles Zoo and the American Humane Society. Even a silly, seemingly innocuous part like the garbage can scene in As Good as It Gets was off-limits to White.