Ever since she co-starred as the spunky grandma of Ryan Reynolds in Sandra Bullock's hit comedy The Proposal last year, Betty White has been enjoying a career resurgence that had rarely been seen in Hollywood before. First she was chosen for a hilarious Snickers commercial during the 2010 Super Bowl final, traditionally the most expensive timeslot of the year for commercial airing due to its high viewership
That commercial was voted as best ads of the year’s event which led to a grassroot Facebook campaign that successfully lobbied her to be the guest host of the popular comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live(SNL). At the age of 88, she became the oldest guest host ever for the program, no mean feat considering the target audiences of SNL are primarily in the teen and 20s.
That episode registered the highest rating for SNL in two years and won Betty White an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series. Striking the iron while it is hot, TV network quickly offers Betty a spot in their new sitcom Hot in Cleveland. As if her comeback didn't gathered enough momentum, fellow cast member of The Golden Girls Rue McClanahan passed away on Jun 3rd this year, leaving Betty as the last survivor of the wacky foursome in the perennial favorite series and the sole receiver of all the residual fan’s devotion. At this rate I wouldn't be surprised Betty will end up as the Entertainer of the Year when December comes.
The Golden Girls was/is one of the best and most successful sitcoms came out in the 80s and it is the series for which Betty White is best remembered for (notice that it received the most applause when The Golden Girls was mentioned during her monologue in SNL). Even though the series has finished its run in 1992, it remains a rating champion on rerun for the last twenty years and continues to win fans who aren’t even born when the show went off the air. This September marked the Silver Anniversary of The Golden Girls and here is my tribute to the beloved series and the four remarkable women who made TV history
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls was the brainchild of NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff who witnessed how his elderly aunt argued and bickered with her neighbor constantly and yet remained best friend to each other. He gave the idea to TV writer Susan Harris and thus The Golden Girls was born. Susan created a sitcom about four post middle age women sharing a house together in Florida: Blanche Devereaux, the owner of the house, was a vain, man hungry southern belle from Atlanta, Georgia who leased her house after her husband passed away. Answering her ads for roommate was Rose Nylund, a naïve, simple-minded farm girl from the fictional town Saint Olaf, Minnesota who moved to Miami to start afresh after her husband died of heart attack (when they were having sex!), and Dorothy Zbornak, a commanding, no-nonsense substitute teacher whose husband of 26 years dumped her for a stewardess. When the retirement home of Dorothy’s mother Sophia Petrillo, a feisty, spunky Italian immigrated to America from old world Sicily, has burnt down, she moved in with her daughter and completed the quartet. In seven seasons, the girls shared laughter, heartbreak, fights and most of all, cheesecakes, poked fun at everything under the Sun from sperm bank, menopause to age discrimination. Together they shared many riotous adventures such as a TV game show appearance where they shamelessly humiliated themselves for the prize, an inadvertent stint at a nudist camp, a fiercely competitive (with each other) bowling tournament and also this freakingly hilarious sequence in preparing for a romantic cruise in the Bahamas:
The Golden Girls broke new ground because for the first time there is a series with an entirely female ensemble cast. Even more amazing for the youth-dominated medium is that they are all over 50s, vivacious, sexually active and well-groomed. It is one of the rarity that depicted the life of woman doesn't end at 50s and they still date and lead an active life. It is debatable whether Sex and The City is just a blatant rip-off of The Golden Girls but one thing for sure is The Golden Girls featured a much better cast and chemistry. It had some of the most legendary veterans on TV and it is impossible to pick a favorite Golden Girls since each is wonderful in their own way. In fact their chemistry is so explosive that eventually each of them had won an Emmy for the show, becoming one of the only three (All In The Family and Will & Grace are the other) shows in TV history that had won an Emmy for the entire cast. But unlike the other two where each character won for a different category, three of the four members of The Golden Girls were competing in the same category and they each triumphed once. It showed you The Golden Girls was truly an ensemble piece since all four women has moments to shine and no one got overshadowed by anyone
Dorothy Zbornak
Bea Arthur was born to a Jewish family in New York as Bernice Frankel, a name she hated and as early as she can remember she called herself Beatrice instead. She started her career as a stage actress in off Broadway during the late 40s. Blessed with a statuesque physique and a baritone voice, Arthur specialized in playing strong and assertive women even though in real life she is very shy and quiet. She eventually worked her way up to the Broadway smash hit Mame in the late 60s. As Vera Charles, the bosom buddies to Angela Lansbury’s Mame Dennis, Arthur won a Tony award and in 1971 she was invited to guest-star in the hit sitcom All in the Family as the outspoken feminist Maude Findlay. It was well received enough to prompt TV producer Norman Lear to spin-off a separate sitcom named Maude, starring Arthur herself. The show is best remembered today for the episode “Maude’s dilemma”, which featured the first ever TV character to have an abortion when Maude found herself unexpectedly pregnant at the age of 47:
Riding the height of the feminist movement in the 70s, Maude became a big success and made Bea Arthur a household name. The show runs for six seasons but in 1978 Bea Arthur decided she didn’t want to continue the role of Maude. After the end of Maude Bea Arthur divorced her second husband and dedicated her time to her family, with only occasional TV guest appearance until the script of The Golden Girls arrived.
In the original script of The Golden Girls, the part Dorothy Zbornak was described as a Bea Arthur type character. It was only after awhile somebody had the genius idea to cast Bea Arthur herself as Dorothy. However, Bea Arthur initially was lukewarm to the idea because she was informed that fellow Maude cast member Rue McClanahan will be cast as the dimwit Rose as well and Arthur felt their characters will be too similar to what they have played in Maude. She only became interested in the project when Rue McClanahan personally persuaded her and it was Blanche Rue would be playing.
While Dorothy shared many outspoken traits with Maude, the writer did give Dorothy a little softer edge. For example, the fact that she was dumped by her husband for a younger woman and she was always the butt of the jokes for being unattractive gave Dorothy a more vulnerable side. However, Bea Arthur was at her best when she was in charge, such as how she fended off a potential prison brawl when the girls were (wrongfully) arrested for prostitution:
I work in the public school system and it's not that different from this
It is hilarious but it is also somewhat true :)
In 1992 Bea Arthur decided she wanted to leave while the show was still on top, thus ended the run of The Golden Girls. She kept a very low profile from then on but returned to Broadway in 2001 with her one woman show And Then There’s Bea. On Apr 25th 2009, Bea Arthur passed away from lung cancer at age 86. Private to the end the public has no idea of her illness. Upon the news of her death broke, I was surprised by how many women has found Bea beautiful and listed her as their role model, considered that Ms. Arthur was never the conventional beauty with her build and low voice. However, as American had learned from the women’s movement, of which Bea was very much a part of, a strong woman is indeed an attractive woman.
Blanche Devereaux
Rue McClanahan was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in a small mid-western town in Oklahoma. Despite her small town background, McClanahan hailed from a rather progressive and liberal family where her mom owned her own beauty parlor business. Eddi-Rue herself was already a co-partner in a dance studio when she was still in high school, very unusual for teenagers of her time, much less a girl. Even at a very young age McClanahan was encouraged to realize her full potential and she excelled academically. However, McClanahan loved to perform and after graduating from college, she decided to move to New York to become a professional actress
Despite her obvious talent and love of performing, McClanahan had to go through a long apprenticeship before finding success and financial security in the business. Two things went against her: while her parents had always encouraged Rue to dream big, what they didn’t prepare her is the rough life of big city and McClanahan found her small town value is no match for New York. In additions, her romantic ideal of relationship had imprudently brought her six marriages and numerous affairs, many of which had seriously jeopardized her career and livelihood.
It was only until legendary TV producer Norman Lear, who had saw Rue McClanahan performed on stage before, casted her as the naïve Vivian, best friend to Bea Arthur’s Maude, in the series Maude that Rue finally has steady employment and not to mention income. However, when Maude finished its run after six seasons, Rue’s life was once again thrown back into crisis due to the nasty divorce from husband number four, who asked for half of her earning. Meanwhile she suffered from a near fatal surgical complication during an operation for gall bladder attack. So she kept her finance afloat by appearing as the mousy Aunt Fran in the sitcom Mama’s Family, a part she felt she was wasted in. All these were rescued when the script of The Golden Girls arrived. Rue instantly connected with the part of men-hungry vixen Blanche Devereaux and knew she had a hit in hand. The problem was producer intended to give the part to Betty White instead. Fortunately casting director had the senses to ask Betty and Rue to read each other’s parts during audition. Any indecision on who should play who was quashed and the rest is history
Even though all four characters in The Golden Girls are not shy from romantic pursue, Blanche is by far the most sexually liberal of all and the least socially acceptable for women of their demographic at that point. Rue played the part with just the right combination of aggressive sexuality and emotional vulnerability that the role never sank below good taste. It also allow women above fifty to feel sexy for the first time, that female empowerment has become one of the cornerstone of the show. In additions, The Golden Girls challenged many of the social taboos of its time, such as lesbianism in this classic episode that won the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy for the show:
It was way ahead of its time when you considered The Golden Girls debuted during the Reagan era, under which one saw some of the most homophobic policies due to AIDS. It will be even funnier if you know who Danny Thomas, perhaps the most famous and beloved Lebanese in America, is. By the way, Danny’s son Tony Thomas was actually one of the executive producers of The Golden Girls. He sure is a good sport to allow the show to make fun of his own father.
The Golden Girls finished its run in 1992 when Bea Arthur decide to leave, the other three tried to carry on in the spinoff The Golden Palace but without Bea the series never found its footing and got cancelled after just one season. Rue thereafter guest starred in a number of series, got married for the seventh time and released her autobiography My First Five Husbands…And the Ones Who Got Away. However, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 and poor health has undermined her subsequent career. On Jun 3rd 2010 Rue McClanahan passed away after suffering from a massive stroke. She was 76.
Sophia Petrillo
All the Golden Girls were already a household name before the series started in 1985, except Estelle Getty who played the octogenarian matriarch Sophia Petrillo. That is because Ms Getty took a twenty years detour in becoming a professional actress in favor of doing what was expected of her at the time – raising a family. Estelle was born Estelle Scher to a Polish-Jewish immigrant family in the lower East side of Manhattan in 1923. Though her family was not well off, one luxury Estelle got to enjoy as a kid was the frequent trip to vaudeville her father would take his family to after work. That experience had left a life-long impression on Estelle’s young mind but as with so many of the time her dream of being actress were met with dissuasion. As a result she compromised by taking secretarial jobs during the days once she graduated from high school so that she can audition for parts in the local theatres at nights
In 1947 Estelle met business Arthur Gettlemen and nine months later they were married. The Gettlemen soon started a family when Estelle gave birth to two boys. Even though Estelle continued to finding ways to act in the provincial theatres for the next thirty years, success was understandably limited when she had to stretch between her secretarial job and raising her children.
It was only until 1976 when her children had grown that Estelle could dedicate more her time in pursuing her goal. She met a young struggling playwright named Harvey Fierstein, who was writing a play about a Jewish torch-song singing transvestite’s search for love in New York. Estelle read the play and was smitten with it. She asked Harvey to write a part for her in the play and so he added a third act circling around the mother of the transvestite and the play became Torch Song Trilogy.
Torch Song Trilogy started off extremely modestly in off-off Broadway where the entire cast was made up of amateurish actors who mostly don’t have day jobs or real income. However, good word-of-mouth allowed the play to move to off Broadway within three months and before long it was moved to Broadway in 1982 where immense popularity means tickets had to be booked three month ahead. Eventually Torch Song Trilogy won the Tony for Best Play in 1983 and after plugging along for over thirty years, Estelle finally made it as a legitimate actress.
However, Estelle Getty remained an unknown outside of the small circle of New York theatre but that was about to change. While touring with Torch Song Trilogy in 1984 Estelle came to Los Angeles. She was called in by TV producers to audition for a TV pilot called The Golden Girls. The audition wasn't exactly a smooth ride because producers weren’t entirely convinced when Estelle was substantially younger than the character Sophia Petrillo. No decision were made even after numerous readings. It was only until her manager dressed her up to the part with powder in her hair during the last reading that Estelle had secured the part. Even so, Sophia was not originally designed as a regular cast member for the show. However, the chemistry among the four actresses was too undeniable in the pilot for the producer to ignore. Consequently, an original character, a male servant of the house, was cut after the first episode and The Golden Girls had become a foursome ever since
Sophia Petrillo was written to have suffered from a stroke before, which left her speaking whatever on mind with no inhibition. As a result the writer always gave Estelle some of the raciest lines ever on TV which endured her to millions of fans over all America. At a pint size 4’ 10 ½”, the physical contrast between her and Bea Arthur made Sophia and Dorothy one of the most memorable mother and daughter team. However, it is not just the feistiness that made Sophia such a colourful character. There is genuine affection between her and Dorothy, such as the time when it was discovered that the hospital might have switched the baby and Sophia might not be the real mother of Dorothy:
Interestingly, the writer never bother to resolve the real relationship between Sophia and Dorothy but I believe it is intentional: The show appeal to millions for because, blood-related or not, these four women are a family, however unconventional it might be.
For a few years after the end of The Golden Girls and The Golden Palace, Estelle Getty kept herself busy with various TV appearances and she co-starred in the hit family movie Stuart Little (also the last real hit for Geena Davis). However, in the late 90s she was diagnosed with dementia, a nervous disease that causes the loss of cognitive ability. As her health and mind began to decline due to the condition Estelle had stopped making public appearance. Reportedly she was unable to recall her former co-star when Betty White and Rue McClanahan visited her during her last years. On July 22nd 2008 Estelle died of complications from her disease, just three days before her 85th birthday and making her the first Golden Girl to pass away
Rose Nylund
Three of the four Golden Girls are originally from the stage. Uniquely, Betty White’s background firmly rooted on television. The oldest of the cast, Betty White was born on the outskirt of Chicago in 1922 to a household full of love for animal, which has a life-long influence on her. Her family would move to Los Angeles when Betty was only two. Growing up next to the movie capital didn’t not inspire Betty to become an actress. Her foray into show business was only because of her singing in her high school graduation. A producer of radio programming heard the performance and asked Betty if she would be interested in an experiment broadcast called television. Thus began Betty’s legendary television career in 1939, three months after her graduation. To put this in the proper perspective, before World War II the major public broadcast in America was primarily radio. It was only in April of 1939 New York’s World Fair that televisions made its debut in the country. That means Betty White was truly a pioneer of the new medium.
The outbreak of WWII temporarily halted the development of both American television and Betty’s career. In the meanwhile she did what was expected of women to do at the time – got married, first to an Army pilot and later to a veteran turned talent agent. Both marriages ended briefly in part of the fact that instead of being a cookie-cutter housewife, Betty, unusual for women at the time, wanted to have a career and NOT to have children. So by 1949 Betty White became twice divorced. With two failed marriage, a defeated Betty felt marital bliss probably is not in her card and so threw herself into her work in a local Los Angeles TV show. Soon it paid dividend as she was approached to star in and produce her own TV series Life with Elizabeth, making her one of the first female TV producer ever. The success allowed the show to move beyond just Los Angeles area and to be broadcast across the nation. Eventually it won Betty her first Emmy for Best Actress which led to NBC offering her her own daytime variety show on national TV.
Although her variety show ended only one year later, Betty moved on to become a frequent guest panelist in many TV game shows, a programming that has gain tremendous popularity in the mid fifties. One of the game shows Betty often made her guest appearance was Password, hosted by the king of game shows Allen Ludden. Turned out the widowed Ludden has more romantic intention behind her frequent invitation. In 1962 Allen Ludden proposed to Betty White but with her past failures Betty was more than a little hesitant and turned him down. Undeterred, the persistent Ludden put the ring Betty returned upon his proposal on a chain around his neck as a reminder to Betty. After a year of trying, Allen and Betty finally got married.
Professionally Betty also reached a new pinnacle through Allen. Through her relationship with Allen Ludden, Betty became a close friend with Mary Tyler Moore and her then husband Grant Tinker. At the time Mary Tyler Moore was starring in the classic TV sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mary suggested Betty to the producers of the show when they were looking for someone to play a new character Sue Ann Nivens, a sweet on the surface but conniving underneath homemaker. Soon Sue Ann Nivens became Betty White’s first classic TV character and won her two Emmy for Best Supporting Actress.
However, just when life with Ludden was at its most charmed disaster struck. In 1980, not long after Betty's enormous success with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Allen Ludden was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. The cancer was on his stomach which was inoperable. Betty White was devastated when doctor told her that there was nothing they can do. In Jun the following year Allen Ludden passed away, just five days shy of their eighteenth anniversary.
Betty White never found another love like Allen but just as unexpected as Allen’s death, she was on the verge of her greatest professional success. Four years after the death of her husband, due to her previous fames as the home-wrecker Sue Ann Nivens, Betty was approached to play Blanche in the excellent script of The Golden Girls. A last minute switch of character with Rue McClanahan proved to be no challenge to Betty. During the first year of The Golden Girls, all four actresses were nominated for an Emmy but only Betty went home with the Best Actress award, making her the first to win an Emmy for the show. Her character Rose Nylund was written as a total naïve. On a lesser actress the character will appear innocuous but Betty played her with just enough sweetness to be endearing, as evidenced in Rose's moving monologue to her deceased husband back in hometown St Olaf:
Reportedly Betty blew her lines in the scene multiple times by addressing to her real-life husband Allen instead of her TV husband Charles
Betty White remained the most active of the four Golden Girls after the series finished its run in 1992. Even at 88 she is still going strong with numerous guest appearances on TV from The Simpsons to Family Guy to Ugly Betty to 30 Rock. With a TV career that is as long and luminous as hers Betty practically became the TV institution itself. With the passing of Rue McClanahan early this year, she also became the last surviving member of the cast. I’m sure when the new of Rue’s death broke many fans of The Golden Girls were reminded of this eerily prophetic scene:
However, just Sophia said, the ever indomitable Betty White will be able to carry on and keep the memory of The Golden Girls alive. I started this tribute almost three months ago and, due to my procrastination, it wasn’t finished until now. Turned out Betty White was indeed named Entertainer of the Year by Associated Press, and deservedly so. However, even with each new height she soared in the last eighteen months, I can’t help but felt something was missing, something like the magical chemistry among the four actresses that was so palpable in The Golden Girls. For individually they each are a legend in their own right but together, they are Golden
