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Some saucy old gals just keep going. At 88, Betty White's never been hotter.

White's remarkable late-career roll continues with Hot in Cleveland (Monday, CTV at 8 p.m.). Last month's debut of the new comedy series on the U.S. cable outlet TV Land earned the channel its highest ratings ever - nearly five million viewers. The show boasts three other TV veterans in the cast, but everyone knows viewers tuned in to see dear but not-always-sweet Betty.

"It blows my mind," White said in a recent conference call. "I'm blessed with good health and I'm grateful for it, and my energy level is very high … If I get four or five good hours of sleep a night, that's all I need."

The young stars of Gossip Girl and Glee could learn a thing or two from White. Several weeks back, she became the oldest person to ever host NBC's Saturday Night Live - earning the show its highest rating in two years - which came courtesy of a Facebook campaign supported by more than a half-million fans.

And in the past few years, everyone has come to appreciate White for different reasons. Some loved her appearance in a popular Super Bowl commercial in which she's brutally tackled by football players into the muddy turf (it was stunt double, of course). Others admire White's scene-stealing roles in the Sandra Bullock film The Proposal and the TV series 30 Rock. And still more have become fans of her frequent appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (where she gamely played "beer pong" with the host) or The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

"That's been the most fun of anything I've done," she said. "Craig is just incredible. The only thing is we can't ever dare make eye contact when we're working together, or we both crack up. I don't know why. We just tickle each other."

And White is the reason to watch Hot in Cleveland. The premise involves three fortysomething gal-pals from Los Angeles - novelist Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli), beautician Joy (Jane Leeves) and ex-soap star Victoria (Wendie Malick) - whose high-profile days in the Hollywood fast lane are behind them. The trio are on a flight bound for Paris that makes an unscheduled stop in Cleveland. When locals there fawn and fuss over them, they make the decision to stay and rent a house that comes with a crusty but very funny live-in caretaker named Elka, played by White. Let the games begin.

"Elka is not a nice person," White acknowledged. "When she sees the real-estate agent talking to the three girls, her opening line is, 'Why are you renting to prostitutes?' So that kind of set her character. She's not easy to live with."

Larry King, who announced his retirement this week, was lauded for his 25 years on TV, but that's just getting started: White has been doing this for six decades. Back in 1952, TV Guide profiled the ingenue star of the sitcom Life with Elizabeth, saying: "She is young, pretty without being a coldly chiselled beauty, and has the disposition of a storybook heroine. She is utterly unspoiled. Furthermore, she has talent."

In the sixties, White was a regular on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and other talk shows, and she appeared on nearly every game show on the dial (she met her late husband Allen Ludden while appearing on his game show, Password).

To a certain generation of viewers, White is best known from her roles on two classic series: In the seventies TV staple The Mary Tyler Moore Show, she played the man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens; in the eighties, she was the dense but adorable Rose on The Golden Girls. She has won six Emmys for her comic portrayals.

And while she's usually sweet as pie, White is not above displaying her ribald side - as she demonstrated most shockingly in The Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner in 2006. To most viewers, White delivered the line of the night: "I once had sex with William Shatner. I remember he was on top of me, huffing and puffing, and I'm like, 'You'd better wrap it up, Bill. The Roast is going to start any minute!' "

But much like the recent SNL sketch where she played a scooter-driving senior who makes out with her own grandson, White can pull off those moments because she's honest and funny and still unspoiled. And at her current rate of career expansion, she could still meet the man of her dreams.

"My fantasy man has been forever and will continue to be Robert Redford," she said dreamily. "I have never met the man, but I just enjoy fantasizing about him completely."

Oh Betty, don't ever change.

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