“ I keep saying ( Betty) has given such a valentine to women everywhere because she has allowed us to come out and own who we are. . . . If you want to show up every day with a smile on your face and a good attitude, chances are you can keep going as long as you want to.”

White, pro that she is, just goes for the punch line: “ It sure beats the alternative.”

The Cleveland quartet, which also includes Valerie Bertinelli, clicks with an easy banter as they sit for an interview in the kitchen of the show’s set.

The four have experience with successful sitcoms — Bertinelli in One Day at a Time, Leeves in Frasier, Malick in Just Shoot Me and White in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls — and appreciate being part of another one. “ If you put all the years together that all four of us have been on television . . . ,” Bertinelli says, trying to conjure up a suitably large number.

Leeves says all were more drawn to the project when they heard about their prospective co-stars.

“ For me, knowing these fabulous women ( would take part), I was like, ‘ Omigosh, we’re going to have such a good time,’ ” Leeves says. “ We have this great chemistry.”

Bertinelli, who plays author Melanie, says that translates to the screen.

“ I loved it so much,” she says of Cleveland’s pilot, “ and I can’t imagine someone not liking it.”

“ I think it’s great that she loves it, but when she keeps kissing the screen, it’s going a little far,” counters White, who is enjoying a career resurgence that featured a Saturday Night Live hosting gig.

“ But it’s you I’m kissing,” says Bertinelli, whose fiancé, Tom Vitale, hails from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. She calls the series “ a love letter to Cleveland.”

The actresses have previous connections. Ohio Wesleyan alum Malick, whose Victoria is a fading soap star, and Leeves, whose Joy is a celebrity eyebrowarcher, spent a year together on Frasier. Bertinelli and Leeves are friends.

And all are fans of White’s Golden Girls, a comedy that serves as a Cleveland antecedent, because both center on the bonds among four women. “ We were like four points on the compass, and the audience knew us all so well that they waited for each reaction from each character,” says White, a veteran of The King and I and South Pacific at the Cleveland Playhouse.

“ That’s happening now, where the audience is sort of ahead of us on it,” Leeves says. “ That feels so good,” Bertinelli says. “ You can play into it,” White says. “ And you do, darling,” Leeves adds, timing her response for maximum laughter.