The Golden Girls, Thank You For Being A Friend

This hit show of seven seasons began in the mid 1980s on NBC and had three well known actresses to boost it to fame, and a fourth actress came to fame from the series:

Beatrice "Bea" Arthur was best known, up to that point, for starring in "Maude," a comedy on CBS that ran for much of the 1970s. "Maude" was a spinoff from "All In The Family," as Bea Arthur played Edith's cousin Maude in a couple of episodes of that show, where she bedeviled Archie with her liberal feminist political beliefs. Prior to that, Bea Arthur became known to Broadway audiences for her role as Vera Charles in the musical "Mame," starring Angela Lansbury, from the mid 1960s, a role Bea Arthur also portrayed in the movie version of the 1970s, starring Lucille Ball.* In The Golden Girls, she played Dorothy Zbornak, a divorced school teacher, who had been married for 38 years. She was tough, but caring, and a number of episodes have Dorothy dealing in some way with her ex husband Stanley, played by Herb Edelman, but most often she spends her time worrying over or arguing with her mother, Sophia (see below). Dorothy is known for her dry and sarcastic remarks, given in her rather deep voice.

Betty White had been in the public eye for some time, and she was known for hosting the Rose Parade for a number of years for NBC. Then she furthered her career in the role of Sue Ann Nivens on the 1970s CBS comedy, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," as well as appearing on "The Match Game," ** and some other television game shows, including "Password," *** a popular game show hosted by her husband, Allen Ludden. She has been a long time advocate for animal welfare. On the Golden Girls, Betty White played Rose Nylund, a widow of Norwegian descent from St. Olaf, Minnesota, known for driving her roommates crazy with Viking and St. Olaf stories. Rose is a super good person who is always willing to help others and she's almost always cheerful, but she's not the sharpest tack on the bulletin board, and her mistakes provide plenty of hilarity. In one episode, Dorothy is looking to earn some extra money and she has Rose take an ad in to the newspaper, but Rose mistakenly places Dorothy's ad in the "personals," and the ad says, "Will do anything for $8.00 and hour." The men start calling and coming to the house! In another episode, Rose's cousin is coming to visit and she buys him a cake. The problem is, the cake is from a sex bake shop and the cake is shaped like a certain part of male anatomy. When the other girls see the cake, Blanche says, "Why that's in the shape of a .." But Dorothy interrupts her, saying, "We know what it's in the shape of," but Rose says something like, "But I bought it because I thought it was in the shape of Florida." 

Rue McClanahan was best known for her role on "Maude," as Vivian Harmon, Maude's close friend. She played widowed, but sex crazed, narcissistic Southerner, Blanche Devereaux, on the Golden Girls. Blanche is always worried about her appearance, and she's not afraid to claim how attractive she is. On the more serious side, Blanche at times laments her shortcomings as a mother, and in one episode, when her young teenage grandson (her daughter's son) comes for a visit, he tells his grandmother and the other girls how his parents argue and pay virtually no attention to him. The boy is given lots of attention during his visit, including some discipline, which he comes to accept. At the end of his visit time, he tells his grandmother that he wants to live with her permanently. Blanche calls her daughter and tells her she wants to keep her grandson there, and her daughter refuses, but Blanche firmly scolds her daughter and tells her to give the boy love, "or I'm gonna kick your uppity butt until Hell won't have it." The other girls are sitting nearby and congratulate Blanche on her strong words. Blanche tells them she'd love the chance to raise her grandson to try to make up for her failures with her daughter. It's a pretty memorable scene.
   
Estelle Getty was something of the ''new girl on the block," as she was unknown to the general American public when the show started, but her performance as Sophia Petrillo, the Sicilian widow and mother of Dorothy, quickly changed all of that and made her a star. Sophia was known for her quick and outspoken remarks, as well as lending her storytelling to help the other three women during times of trouble. Her stories almost always start with, "Picture it.... Sicily, 1920," or whatever year she would use.

In real life, the four actresses were strong advocates for gay rights and helped to raise money for gay causes and for AIDS research. Bea Arthur, who passed away in the spring of 2009, even left hundreds of thousands of dollars to help provide housing for homeless LGBTQ youth in New York City. Betty White openly supported gay marriage and said something to the effect that, "anti-gay people should mind their own business and not worry so much about what other people are doing. I don't care whom you sleep with, rather are you a good person?" (This is NOT a direct quote, but rather a paraphrasing.)

The general gist of the series is that four women live together in a home in Miami and become supportive friends to one another, in spite of their individual lifestyle differences and personalities, as their strong common friendship overcomes any differences, which they come to see as far less important. When the show first started, three of the women are in their fifties, with Blanche being the youngest, while Sophia is about 80, if I remember correctly. The series was bold and it provided steps for people to accept gay relatives, and indeed, gay people, in general, as in one episode, Blanche struggles to accept her brother, when she learns he is gay. In another episode, Dorothy's lesbian friend comes to visit and ends up falling for Rose, something the narcissistic Blanche finds unacceptable, since she can't imagine any person not taken with her. She also confuses the word "lesbian" with "Lebanese." It's hilarious! But there is also the serious side, as Dorothy asks her mother how she would feel if she found out that one of her kids was gay. Sophie answers, "I wouldn't love them one bit less, and I would wish them all the luck in the world," a bold statement for television in the 1980s, the era of Reagan, Jerry Falwell and the Religious Right.

* For more about "Mame," here is the link: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2015/03/mame-life-is-banquet.html

** The Match Game was on NBC for a number of years in the 1960s, and then shifted to CBS for much of the 1970s. 

*** Password aired on CBS for much of the 1960s, then on ABC in much of the 1970s, before switching to NBC (as "Password Plus") in the late 1970s. 

Photo is from the Buena Vista Home Entertainment/Touchstone Television DVD (Fourth Season, all seven seasons are available)

WORD HISTORY:
Six-This numerical word goes back to Indo European "seks," which meant "six." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "sehks," with the same meaning. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "siex," which then became "six," where it has remained for many, many centuries. The other Germanic languages have: German "sechs," Low German "sess," West Frisian "seis," Dutch "zes," Danish and Norwegian "seks," Icelandic and Swedish "sex."