LOS ANGELES (AP) – Betty White is making her mark on the nation’s snail mail.
The beloved actor of The Golden Girls fame was celebrated with a new United States (US) Postal Service stamp at a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Los Angeles Zoo.
Fans that were crowded behind barricades cheered as a blue curtain dropped to reveal the stamp featuring a portrait of White against a violet-coloured background with lighter shades of bubbly spots in a nod to her sparkling personality. She wears a blue polka-dot blouse and peeking out of her blond curls is an earring shaped like a pawprint.
“When I was working on the stamp surrounding myself with Betty White videos and pictures, I felt like I was working on a portrait of a family member,” Boston-based artist Dale Stephanos said. “I wanted Betty’s huge personality to take centre stage.”
The illustration is based on a photo taken by Kwaku Alston in 2010. At the celebration, singer-songwriter Ellis Hall performed a snippet of Thank You for Being a Friend, the theme song to The Golden Girls.
A laughing kookaburra and other squawking birds occasionally interrupted the speakers, which surely would have delighted the animal-loving White.
