The Golden Girls followed the adventures of the sharp-tongued and sassy roommates as they shared lives and a home in Miami. There was Rue McClanahan’s sultry Southern belle, Blanche Devereaux; Betty White’s wide-eyed and naïve Rose Nylund; Bea Arthur’s gruff displaced Northerner, Dorothy Zbornak; and her salty mother, Sophia, played by Estelle Getty.
This story is set in Florida, and it is the story of one of the strongest friendships we’ve ever seen. These four ladies—Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia—are loving life and sharing it with each other. Their dates come and go, but the love that holds this friendship together is strong—and it makes for one of the best sitcoms to ever grace the TV.
Each week, The Golden Girls taught viewers important lessons on love, family, and aging, and on the restorative power of friendship, humor, and, of course, cheesecake. They showed that even though they were in their golden years, they were still very much in the primes of their lives.
And below are a few things that even the most devoted Golden Girls fan may not know about the show and its stars:
1. Betty White was originally supposed to play Blanche
In a conversation in 2006, Betty White unveiled a mind-blowing fact—she was originally supposed to play the seductive Blanche, not the milk-fed Rose. Additionally, McClanahan was supposed to play the Minnesota farm girl, Rose. The show would have looked very different with McClanahan spinning tales about life in St. Olaf while White invited a parade of attractive men onto the lanai.
2. Bea Arthur hated cheesecake
Cheesecake was practically the fifth roommate on sitcom, but not all of the actors were fans of the creamy treat. Turns out, Bea Arthur detested the dessert.
3. Bea Arthur was a U.S. Marine
Before she was an actress with a starring role in Maude, Arthur had a very different job—a truck driving Marine. Arthur volunteered for the United States Marine Corps as one of the first members of the Women’s Reserve before World War II. She worked for the military as both a typist and a truck driver and on her volunteer application, listed her active hobbies as hunting with a “.22 caliber rifle and a bow and arrow,”
4. Sophia was a year younger than her on-screen daughter, Dorothy
On the show, Getty played Sophia, the little old lady whose sharp tongue was always getting her in trouble with her daughter, Dorothy, who frequently threatened to ship her off to the Shady Pines nursing home. Off screen, though, Getty was a year younger than Arthur who played Dorothy and Getty spent a lot of her time on-set in the make-up department transforming into the little old lady. The oldest actor in the cast was actually White, according to Mental Floss.
5. The show had a spin-off called The Golden Palace
Even the most devoted fans of The Golden Girls may have forgotten about The Golden Palace. When The Golden Girls ended with Dorothy getting married and Blanche selling the house, Sophia, Blanche and Rose bought an ɑƅᴄandoned hotel and ran it with the help of Cheech Marin and Don Cheadle. The Golden Palace only lasted a season.
6. The Golden Girls performed for the Queen Mother
The hit TV series earned fans around the globe, including in Buckingham Palace. In a Reddit Q & A, White recounted the time the cast flew to London for a live performance of a Golden Girls script for the British Royal Family at the invitation of the late Queen Mother, who was a huge fan of the show. “It was very exciting,” White told fans on Reddit. “The Queen was lovely. We were told not to address her unless we were addressed. She was up in a box and she came down on stage after with Princess Anne. She said, ‘Lovely, pretty girls’ and I said, ‘Not bad bodies,’ and she said ‘Oh, no, not bad bodies!'”
7. Sophia was not supposed to be a regular
Initially, the character of Sophia was meant to be merely an occasional guest star—Dorothy’s saucy mother stopping in for a visit. However, Sophia ended up being so popular—or as they say in Hollywood, she tested strongly with preview audiences— that the producers quickly made her a regular character, according to Mental Floss.
8. The Golden Girls were supposed to have a chef
In the original script, the Golden Girls had a personal chef named Coco played by actor Charles Levin. He appeared in the pilot episode of the show, but was ultimately cut as the show became a series, because the producers wanted the kitchen to be where much of the action took place and thought a chef would detract from that camaraderie. Plus, Sophia was a great cook.
9. Estelle Getty had serious stage fright
While Sophia Petrillo was known for her quick tongue and acerbic wit, she was actually petrified when the cameras were on. In an interview with the Archive of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, McClanahan revealed Getty’s stage fright. “She was a completely different person the rest of the week,” McClanahan explained. “But once it was the day of the show, she was like Pigpen with a black cloud. Poor thing.”
10. Broadway legend Elaine Stritch auditioned to play Dorothy
The legendary Elaine Stritch auditioned for the role of Dorothy. “It was a damn good script,” said Stritch later talking about blowing her audition. “I blew a multi-million, zillion dollar, international, syndicated, residual-grabbing, bopparoni, smasharoni, television situation comedy entitled, The Golden Girls!”
