Hollywood took a solemn moment amid the celebration of the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards to pay respect to some of the friends, colleagues and icons TV has lost over the past year. Betty White, Bob Saget and Anne Heche were among the television stars honored in the Emmys' annual "In Memoriam" tribute, which acknowledges the deaths of small-screen luminaries since the previous year's ceremony. This year's tribute was set to John Legend's new single "Pieces," with the singer/songwriter playing the touching tune about grief and loss on the piano as photos of the late television stars flashed onscreen.
White was a five-time Emmy winner going back to 1975, and she had an additional 16 nominations between 1951 and 2014. The beloved Golden Girls star died on Dec. 31, 2021 — just two weeks before she would have celebrated her 100th birthday. "The world looks different now," Ryan Reynolds wrote at the time. "She was great at defying expectation. She managed to grow very old and somehow, not old enough. We'll miss you, Betty." Journalist Dan Rather called White "a spirit of goodness and hope."
"Betty White was much beloved because of who she was, and how she embraced a life well lived," he wrote on Twitter. "Her smile. Her sense of humor. Her basic decency. Our world would be better if more followed her example. It is diminished with her passing."
