Things don’t look good for ornery Ann Douglas on The Bold and the Beautiful. The maddening matriarch, played by TV icon Betty White, will return to the show November 18 for a four-day stint and it appears she’s ill and preparing to die. Ann will leave her nursing home in Chicago—sans luggage—and arrive unannounced on the beach at Malibu. She phones her daughters Stephanie (Susan Flannery) and Pam (Alley Mills) and asks them to meet her there. Hinting that the end is near, Ann insists she doesn’t want to be put in a hospital. Naturally, the sisters freak. Later, Ann’s in so much pain that Pam defies her wishes and calls 911. In a soap first, White’s November 20 and 23 episodes will have a cast that’s all female, including paramedics and hospital staff. (Yvette Freeman who played nurse Haleh Adams on ER for 15 seasons appears as Ann’s doctor.) Is White really getting ready to leave B&B? Execs at the show are keeping mum about that, but the beloved, 87-year-old star spoke to TV Guide Magazine about her return to the soap and was dead-sure about one thin—there’s always more to Ann than meets the eye!

This is some very heavy stuff, Ms. Betty White!
And I love it! Most roles I’m offered have me there to provide a chuckle. On B&B it’s all serious, baby. I get a chance to do something I rarely do—emote all over the place! Ann’s such an interesting character study.

The fans won’t like this one bit. Ann’s a royal pain in the ass but we love her for that. We don’t want her dead.
Ann doesn’t want to see Ann dead! I think she’s starting to get panicky and doesn’t want to face death. In her mind she didn’t show up in Los Angeles to make amends with her girls. She’d never admit she’s been less than perfect as a mother. But she’s losing her power. She’s losing control. She wants to get rid of some of the old garbage, so it’s nice for her to be with Stephanie and Pam and resolve some issues that have been sticky for a while. She must have looked in the mirror one morning and said, “My God, Ann, you’re getting older. We better get some things resolved.” Of course, I do that every morning!

She’s been living in a nursing home, right?
Yes, and I’m sure it’s a nice place. You can rest assured that Ann is going to take care of Ann—she’s always looking out for No. 1!

And suddenly she heads to the beach at Paradise Cove in Malibu? What’s up with that?
Ann only saw this place once before. Stephanie and Pam took her there on her last Christmas visit but she never forgot the little restaurant they went to and the lovely pier. To Ann, it’s the most beautiful spot on earth. She doesn’t want hospitals. She just wants to be at peace at the ocean, and I get that. I have a house in Carmel right on the water and I go up there sometimes, just to kind of get myself re-sorted. Being at the ocean is the best kind of therapy.

As we know, Ann looked the other way when her husband physically abused the young Stephanie, and she’s always treated Pam like the hired help. Is this beach experience representative of the sweet, good kind of life Ann wishes she’d given her daughters, uncomplicated by all the dysfunction and emotional crap?
Oh, possibly. [Laughs] But I don’t trust Ann quite that much. I think she has a personal ax to grind insofar as she wants to clear her conscience of any neglect or wrongdoing. She thinks this is the perfect way to do it. She just wants to “see her girls” as she says—of course, she hasn’t gotten off her duff and tried to see them all that much over the years. She’s all about Ann.

Do you fear the passage of time?
It has never been a fear of mine. My mother brought me up to believe that when we lose somebody we of course grieve for them and all that, but we must also be happy for them. Mother would always say “Now they know the secret! We humans can figure out everything—we have vast knowledge—but the one thing nobody knows is what happens after the moment of death.” Being raised that way, death has always seemed like the big adventure to me, rather than something to dread.

In January you will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild. Kudos! Now discuss.
I still think they’re going to call me one of these days and say, “Oops, sorry, we got the wrong person.” But I can’t be coy. I am so thrilled that I’m mind-boggled! And I just received the Jane Goodall Lifetime Award, one of the top things you can get in the animal world, so for someone whose life is divided and devoted equally to acting and animals, I couldn’t be more honored. I’m 61 years in the acting business and never take it for granted. I never cease to celebrate it every single day.

So no thoughts of retirement?
Never. [Laughs] Of course, that could become a problem. We’ll get to the point where everyone will be saying, “How the hell do we get rid of this old broad?”