As a world-famous actress, Betty White makes a pretty fair matchmaker. She and her late husband Allen Ludden, the host of TV’s “Password,” introduced Tom Sullivan to his beloved wife, Patty.

Sullivan, who is blind from birth, had his eye on a brunette, he says with an ironical laugh. Sullivan was singing in a little club and someone else was showing up nightly. White said, “Can’t you see how that woman in the front row looks at you?”

Of course, he couldn’t. But that woman was Patty and now, two adult children later, the Sullivans have knitted Betty White into their family. That’s where she met Sullivan’s guide dog Dinah, a Golden Retriever.

White has been an animal lover “from in the womb,” as she puts it. “My mother and father were as nutty as I am,” she chuckles. “I don’t understand people who don’t love animals. Animals read you so completely.” And apparently, some people read animals pretty well, too.

Dinah had been Sullivan’s guide for nine years. Her career as a guide dog ended one day at an airport, he says. He realized Dinah herself could no longer see. He immediately got Nelson, a young, aggressive black Lab. “Dinah would line Tom up and ease him through doorways,” White recalls. “Nelson just sort of pulled him through.”
Although sometimes a guide dog can continue to live with a former guide in a household, Dinah tried to commit suicide, Sullivan says. She went under the bed, would not eat, would not come out to relieve herself. It was clear she did not like Nelson.

About this time, White came to the Sullivans for dinner. She saw what was going on. Her husband, Allen, had recently died. “I have no one, Tom,” she told him. “Do you think Dinah could live with me?”

White says she had almost five wonderful years with Dinah. It was Dinah’s “second act.” Suddenly Dinah had another job to do—breaking in White’s housekeeper and rounding up all of White’s other animals.

Seeing Dinah start a new chapter gave White the idea of co-writing “The Leading Lady,” a nonfiction book about Dinah and Tom’s relationship. “Dinah taught Tom to grow up, and me to grow old,” White says.

Now the two are co-authoring a novel called “Together.” White insists it’s Sullivan’s book. “It says, ‘By Tom Sullivan with Betty White,’” she clarifies. “There is nothing Tom cannot do—he goes skiing (with his daughter behind him, calling out the obstacles), sings, writes, composes, golfs—you name it.”

But he has never looked into his guide dog’s eyes or watched the animals scan for danger, while keeping an eye out for moods and commands. “It also occurred to me,” he says, “that I have always been blind, and that it must be harder in a way to lose your sight.” So this—and the remarkable story of Erik Weihenmayer, who lost his sight as a teen, yet became the one-thousandth person to summit Mount Everest—formed the basis of “Together,” which is due in bookstores June 3rd.

In “Together,” a young man is blinded in a mountain climbing accident and with the help of a failed guide dog (only three out of a hundred finish the course), realizes his dream of climbing Everest.

“I contributed just the parts about the dog’s reactions,” White says modestly. Both put themselves into the mind of the dog in the story. “First, guide dog puppies are raised by a family,” Sullivan says. “Then they are taken away and given to a stranger— the trainer. When they are used to that, they are taken away again and introduced to the blind person, who is not as good as the trainer at working with a guide. We wondered how the dog felt about it.”

“Together” is the first in a series of four novels that will deal with the hero’s completion of medical school after the mountain climb, the development of a dog’s talent for detecting cancer, and the aging of a guide dog until he can no longer work.

“I knew how a guide dog worked, but I did not know their body language,” Sullivan says. “Betty does. She is as close to Dr. Dolittle as you can get.”

You are not supposed to interfere with a person’s dog when they are working,” White says. “But Edison (Sullivan’s present German Shepherd) and I are such good buddies, when I come over, he puts his paws on my shoulders.” Don’t tell.

For 40 years, White has supported the Morris Animal Foundation, which is a nonprofit aimed at animal health studies. They have developed a number of life-saving animal vaccines.

Since the 1950s, White has been in primetime hit after hit, from the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” to “Golden Girls.” Now 86, she also has appeared on “Ally McBeal” and “Boston Legal.” Soon, she starts work on the new Sandra Bullock movie, “The Proposal,” which will be filmed in Boston.

Within the last year, White lost her 16-year-old Shih Tzu, 10-year-old Golden, and 11-year-old Himalayan cat, a precious favorite she mentions several times with a catch in her voice. Her remaining companion (at the moment, “you never know,” she says) is a Golden named Pontiac.

Naturally, she was concerned about leaving Pontiac to go to Boston. “They wanted me to come for 10 weeks, and I said no,” she says. “Now it will be six weeks, and I can come back to Los Angeles twice.”

Can you see that golden tail wag?

To recap Betty White’s career to date, go to http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0924508/. More on Tom Sullivan can be found at sullivanspeaks.com. For information on the Morris Animal Foundation, check out morrisanimalfoundation.org.

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