Betty White has had an illustrious Hollywood career. She has starred in many television shows, including her own sitcom and variety show, both titled The Betty White Show. Her most well-known roles are possibly Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls. While all of her performances have been exceptional, one sometimes forgotten role stands above the rest: Lake Placid's Mrs. Delores Bickerman.

Betty White's performance as Mrs. Delores Bickerman in Lake Placid is her most iconic role because she subverts most people's perception of her and of sweet little old ladies in general. However, the role is also iconic because Mrs. Bickerman speaks to the part of many viewers who wish to merely befriend the creature when confronted with a movie monster despite the danger.

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What Is Lake Placid About?

The Crocodile latches on to a helicopter in Lake Placid

Released in 1999, Lake Placid is a horror-comedy about a giant crocodile that terrorizes the community around Black Lake in Maine. Sheriff Hank Keogh and Fish and Game officer Jack Wells must work together to figure out how to stop the crocodile's rampage alongside Kelly Scott, a paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History, and Dr. Hector Cyr, a professor of mythology. They face opposition specifically from Mrs. Delores Bickerman, an old woman who lives on the lake and cares for the crocodiles as if they were her pets. Throughout the course of the movie, they discover that there are actually two giant crocodiles living in Black Lake. While they do have to kill one, they manage to capture the other crocodile, and unbeknownst to the film's main characters, the crocodile's children still live on in the lake.

Lake Placid is much less violent than many other creature features and spends some time pondering people's relationship with nature and the crocodile's place within the natural order. Throughout the course of the film, the characters' opinions of the crocodiles begin to shift. For example, Hank views the crocodile as a dangerous foe that must be destroyed, and Hector views the crocodile as godlike. By the film's end, they both come to see the crocodile as part of the natural order despite its incongruous size. Delores embodies this view of the crocodile, and her performance serves as the backbone of this theme.

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How Betty White Steals the Show as Mrs. Delores Bickerman in Lake Placid

Delores Bickerman leads a cow to the crocodile in Lake Placid

From her first appearance in Lake Placid, Delores seems like a sweet old lady, but she quickly subverts that view. She offers Hank, Jack and Kelly cookies as they question her about the lake. When their questions move on to her deceased husband, she tenses, and then she cheerfully tells them that she murdered him, to the disbelief of the trio. She claims that her husband was ill, and he begged her to kill him. She states, "Finally, I just gave in. I hit him over the head with a skillet, then buried him out at the bulkhead." While Delores' story is not convincing, she still shows how far she is willing to go to protect the crocodiles who have become her beloved pets.

Later, they discover the truth. Delores has been feeding her cows to the crocodiles for six years, and she lied to protect them. In a small but funny detail, she blindfolds the cows before leading them to their doom as if that makes their pain any less. When questioned, Delores confesses that the crocodile ate her husband but claims it was a mistake. Delores is perfectly willing to use profanity to make her points clear, and she steadfastly argues in favor of the crocodile. According to her, the crocodile poses little danger to humans precisely because so few people live on the lake.

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After Lake Placid's climax, where one crocodile is killed, and the other is captured, the film shifts back to Delores as she happily makes her way to her pier. She begins feeding a group of crocodiles, who she calls "cute little buttons," as she tells them how much she loves them. Thus, while Delores lost the battle to save the two adult crocodiles, she has, for the time being, won the war to protect the crocodiles in Black Lake.

While much of the film's humor is dated, Delores easily is the best part of Lake Placid, and Betty White's performance stands the test of time. Delores is hilarious precisely because she subverts the audience's expectations of Betty White and sweet old ladies in general. However, her role as Delores is iconic because it also speaks to the part of many audience members who love monsters and -- when presented with the opportunity -- would prefer to boop the crocodile's snoot and attempt to live in harmony rather than kill the creature.

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