Sophia, Dorothys straight-talking mother, was the Golden Girls houses oldest figure. When all of the evidence is taken into account, it seems likely that the Golden Girls characters were actually younger than their stated ages. Considering how easily Blanche lied to her housemates about her age (and that Sophia immediately called her out and said she'd be 70 when the kid graduates), it's safe to assume that 53 is her actual age going into The Golden Girls. Initially, the producers wanted Betty White to play Blanche because she had been famous for playing promiscuous characters in the past. "[44] Writer Christopher Lloyd explained that the usual situation was for all of the more junior writers to be assigned the same scene to write, with the one judged the best version becoming the one chosen. One, while the characters ages on the show appeared to be quite consistentBlanche, Rose, and Dorothy were all in their mid-50s, and Sophia was Dorothys widowed, elderly motherthe actors who played them were all somewhat varied in age. The Golden Girls came to an end when Bea Arthur elected to quit the series after six seasons in the top ten and the seventh season at #30. Audiences can figure things out with a little detective work. For example, in the pilot episode, Blanche states that she is 54 going on 55, which would mean that her age at the start of the show was 54. The program is about four elderly ladies who live . For, That was the case. Then, in Season 3, Episode 5, "Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself," Sophia tells Dorothy the story of the night Dorothy was conceived. The women in The Golden Girlsall have white, short hair styled in a way we often associate with older individuals. The series also ranked among the Nielsen ratings' top ten for six of its seven seasons. At this time, syndicated reruns began airing, distributed by Buena Vista Television (now DisneyABC Domestic Television), the syndication arm of Disney, whose Touchstone Television division produced the series. Initially, White was considered for the role of Blanche Devereaux, which eventually went to Rue McClanahan. She thought an accentuated Southern accent would be sexy and strong and attractive to men. Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo in the 1985 sitcom The Golden Girls (Credit: NBC). According to McClanahan, by the end of season three, Getty's anxiety had become a serious problem, and she had increasing trouble memorizing her lines. Required fields are marked *. In addition, the character of Sophia had originally been planned as an occasional guest star, but Getty had tested positively with preview audiences, so the producers decided to make her a regular character. Many episodes were edited to allow more commercials and for content. Its a tiny marvel, looking back, that the Golden Girls magnificent casting came together as well as it did. Levin had been suggested by then-NBC president Brandon Tartikoff based on Levin's groundbreaking portrayal of a recurring gay character, Eddie Gregg, on NBC's Emmy-winning drama Hill Street Blues. Shopping Guide However, her popularity with audiences caused Sophia to become a main character in the series. Arguably the main protagonist of the show, Blanche Devereaux is portrayed by Rue McClanahan. Maddy Hiltz is someone who loves all things history. Your email address will not be published. 8 Silk Pillowcases for Your Best Beauty Sleep. Blanche was 17 in 1949, according to Season 3, Episode 25, Mothers Day, when she and her mother reminisce about one of Blanches dates. For simplicity's sake, each season is considered a separate year, as the show ran for seven seasons. She received her Bachelors of Arts in history and her Masters of Arts degree in history both from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. But the women were so uniformly brilliant at nailing it the first time we basically knew that if the women didn't get it right the first time, the joke needed to be replaced." She was portrayed by Betty White for 8 years, totalling 204 episodes.. Rose was supposed to be played by Rue McClanahan, while Blanche Devereaux, one of Rose's roommates, was to be played by White.However, Jay Sandrich, the director of the show, suggested that Betty and Rue switch . Rose, who was born in 1934, would have been around 51, while Sophia, who was born in 1906, would have been 79. [50] She had reportedly started to show signs of the dementia during the filming of the television series, when, despite more than three decades of theater work, she began to struggle to remember her lines, and in later seasons of the show, had to rely on cue cards. For one thing, it did pave the way for a new terrain. Her thesis examined menstrual education in Victorian England. 4. Both Betty White and Bea Arthur were 63 when The Golden Girls premiered, coinciding with the fan theory. Sarah Jessica Parker and Betty White, both of whom play a 55-year-old woman. The Golden Girls first aired on September 14, 1985, and it continues to appeal to both young and older audiences. In "The Golden Girls", Rose is 55, Dorothy is 53, Blanche is 47 and Sophia is 79. White, Betty (2010). Although the womens ages were rarely disclosed, some deductive work may be used to approximate how old each Golden Girl was at the commencement of the series. The Golden Girls: Live! Sue's personality as the perky housewife host on a fictional television station of the show . The pilot takes audio from the sitcom and sets it against a futuristic background inspired by The Jetsons. Beginning in 1990, Marc Cherry served as writer and producer, years before creating Desperate Housewives, which ran on ABC from 2004 to 2012. In a 1988 interview, Getty commented on her phobia and expressed how working with major stars, such as Arthur and White, made her even more nervous. She was especially intimidated by her co-stars, who were all higher profile actresses than she was. Despite her enjoyment in playing Dorothy, the show eventually concluded when Bea Arthur decided to depart the show in 1992. [5] Terry Tang of the Associated Press reported that the series continues to attract new fans in the 21st century and characterized it as an example of a sitcom that has aged well. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Proudly powered by WordPress The Golden Girls is one of the most well-known television shows of all time. [109] The production ended because the producers failed to secure the rights and received a cease-and-desist order by the creators of the original television show. The women had a homosexual cook named Coco who lived with them at first, but after the premiere episode, the character was never seen again. Ironically, despite being the oldest actress in the show, Betty White was the last of the main stars to survive. On November 15, 2005, Warner Home Video released The Golden Girls: A Lifetime Intimate Portrait Series on DVD which contains a separate biography of Arthur, White, McClanahan and Getty, revealing each woman's background, rise to stardom and private life, which originally aired on Lifetime network between June 2000 and January 2003. It has recently come to light that the leading ladies of AndJust Like That, Sex and the Citys reboot, are basically the exact same age as the leading ladies in The Golden Girls a fact that has completely blown our minds! Finally, Sophia is stated to be in her late 70s, suggesting that she was between 77 and 79. Dorothy meets and marries Blanches Uncle Lucas in the hour-long series finale, which aired in May 1992, and moves to Hollingsworth Manor in Atlanta, Georgia. In the original Sex and the City, Samatha Jones (Kim Cattrall) was in her late 40s/ early 50s, but Cattrall decided not to be a part of the reboot. Betty White, who died on December 31, 2021, at the age of 99, was best known for her role as the wonderfully naive Rose Nylund in the NBC comedy The Golden Girls. However, with some detective work, audiences can figure them out. However, there is also some evidence to suggest that these ages may not be accurate. : Extreme Stunt Show, discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, List of awards and nominations received by The Golden Girls, "TV Guide Magazine's 60 Best Series of All Time", Golden Girls appears to get better with pop culture age, "7 Things You Might Not Know About The Golden Girls", "The Golden Girls - Cast/Crew Documentary (2/9)", "These Are the Most-Watched TV Series Finales of All Time: 17", "The TV Ratings Guide: 1987-1988 season ratings", "Golden Girls: A 20th Anniversary Oral History", "Catching Up with the Golden Girls' Susan Harris", "Crackle's Creator Conversation: Soap's Susan Harris", The Interviews: An Oral History of Television, "Betty White and Bea Arthur's Friends Open Up About Their On-Set Feud", "Say It Isn't So, Girls! [24], Shortly afterward, he met with producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas, who were pitching a show about a female lawyer. When the show hit TV screens in the 1980s, society believed that women in their 50s were more grandmotherly, and ready for retirement. On November 9, 2010, the studio released a complete-series box set titled The Golden Girls: 25th Anniversary Complete Collection. [81], Forever Golden: A Celebration of The Golden Girls released in select movie theaters across North America via Fathom Events on September 14, 2021, marking the show's 36th anniversary. She would start getting under a dark cloud the day before tape day You could see a big difference in her that day. Fans of all ages still enjoy The Golden Girls and its actors today. Although Sophia appears to be much older than the other girls in the show, Getty was actually younger than both Bea Arthur and Betty White. The cast of The Golden Girls, Sophia, Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose, have been even further immortalised in two puppet parody shows Thank You For Being A Friend[110] and That Golden Girls Show: A Puppet Parody, both created by Australian screenwriter Thomas Duncan-Watt and producer Jonathan Rockefeller. Cheers. As of February 2013, WE tv's rights expired and Viacom networks' TV Land, home to Betty White's last series Hot in Cleveland, purchased them,[79] as did Logo TV. Rose Nylund was 55 years old when the show premiered, as Dorothy stated in the Season 1 episode Job Hunting.. [124] The eatery closed in November 2017 after less than a year of operation.[125]. Rue McClanahan is the youngest Golden Girl! As such, this social belief is shown on our screens in the Sex and the City reboot, whereas Golden Girls portrayed societal norms of the 1980s. Although the four main stars appeared to have good chemistry onscreen, there was some tension on the set between Betty White and Bea Arthur, whose personalities clashed during filming. [11], Ideas for a comedy series about older women emerged during the filming of a television special at NBC Studios in Burbank, California, in August 1984. Bea Arthur was not a part of the main cast but did guest star in a double episode, reprising her role as Dorothy.[106]. Arthur felt the characters had been in every possible scenario, and wanted to end the series while it was still successful. The doorway from the living room, with the alcove and baker's shelf just inside, was designed to give the illusion that the actors were walking into and out of the kitchen. : Extreme Stunt Show attraction, later replaced by Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. In conclusion, the evidence suggests that the Golden Girls characters were actually younger than their stated ages. DO YOU LOVE SHOES? The Golden Girls is one of four live-action shows, along with All in the Family, Will & Grace, and Schitt's Creek, where all the principal actors have won at least one Emmy. Roses age is the easiest to determine, owing to Dorothy revealing it in Season 1, Episode 22, Job Hunting. Dorothy exposes Roses age is exposed during a chat in which Rose describes her problems finding a new career after leaving her prior one at the grief counseling center. The Golden Girls received critical acclaim throughout most of its run, and won several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series twice. We hope this article on how old were the golden girls has been interesting and has also been able to bring back good memories. Starring actress Hodge left after two seasons, David Rasche joined the cast at the start of the second season, and Loni Anderson was added as the new hospital administrator in the third. [74] The show was the anchor of NBC's Saturday line-up, and almost always won its time slot, as ABC and CBS struggled to find shows to compete against it, the most notable being ABC's Lucille Ball sitcom Life With Lucy in the beginning of the 198687 season although it aired at 8:00, an hour earlier. The story follows four older single women (three widows and one divorced) who share a home in Miami, Florida. I have a passion for learning and enjoy explaining complex concepts in a simple way. One, while the characters ages on the show appeared to be quite. Paul Junger Witt, Tony Thomas, and Harris served as the original executive producers. [108] After the end of The Golden Palace, Getty joined the cast of Empty Nest, making frequent appearances as Sophia in the show's final two seasons. In the first season of Golden Girls, it is revealed that Rose (Betty Whites character) was 55. It ran from September 1992 to May 1993 and also starred Cheech Marin and Don Cheadle. Though Littlefield nixed their idea, he asked if they would be interested in delivering a pilot script for Miami Nice, instead. [28], The pilot included a gay houseboy, Coco (Charles Levin), who lived with the girls. We didn't want the show to be about four dowdy ladies. [41], The show was the second television series to be produced by the Walt Disney Company under the Touchstone Television label, and was subsequently distributed by Buena Vista International, Inc. (which holds as the ownership stake in Disney Channel Southeast Asia, now DisneyABC Television Group). As one of the few times in television history where three shows from the same producer, set in the same city, aired back-to-back-to-back on the same network, the three shows occasionally took advantage of their unique circumstance to create storylines carrying through all three series, such as "Hurricane Saturday". It shattered stereotypes and even made that demographic entertaining for audiences of all genders and ages. The women's ages were usually not explicitly stated, although some deductive work gives a pretty safe estimate of how old each Golden Girl was at the start of the series. Richard Vaczy and Tracy Gamble, previously writers on 227 and My Two Dads, also assumed the roles of producers and head writers. The Golden Girls are also dressed in cardigans or long dresses, similar to the outfits we would find in our grandmothers closet. ISBN978-0-06-242290-3. Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak and Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo in the 1985 sitcom The Golden Girls (Credit: NBC).