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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:12:26 GMT
July 2008 `Golden Girls' actress Estelle Getty dies at 84 7 minutes ago LOS ANGELES - Actress Estelle Getty has died at the age of 84. Her son, Carl Gettleman, says the co-star of the TV show "The Golden Girls" died early Tuesday at home in Los Angeles. Gettleman says she suffered from advanced dementia. The diminutive actress spent 40 years struggling for success before landing the role of a lifetime in 1985, playing the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on "The Golden Girls." ******************** From Estelle's website: ************** Etonline has posted information about Estelle... Obviously the last part is wrong, as Arthur died a few years back (if I'm not mistaken). ***************** BBC News in the UK has announced Estelle's death as breaking news. I am pleased that this sad event has been acknowledged by the British media.
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:16:36 GMT
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:19:26 GMT
LIFETIME Television Pays Tribute to Golden Girl Estelle Getty With 10 Special Episodes... LIFETIME Television Pays Tribute to Golden Girl Estelle Getty With 10 Special Episodes of the Popular Series, Friday, July 25 from 12-5pm (ET/PT) Fans Can Vote at myLifetime.com for Favorite 'Sophia' Episode NEW YORK, July 22 /PRNewswire/ -- This Friday, July 25, Lifetime Television will pay a special on-air and online tribute to Estelle Getty, who played the cantankerous "Sophia Petrillo" on the iconic comedy series "The GoldenGirls." Ms. Getty passed away today at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 84. From 12-5PM (ET/PT), Lifetime will air 10 episodes showcasing "Sophia" in all her blustering, sarcastic splendor, beginning with the show's pilot. The last episode at 4:30PM (ET/PT) will be the #1 favorite "Sophia episode" as decided through a vote of her legion of devoted fans at myLifetime.com. "The Golden Girls" premiered on Lifetime in 1997. The series airs weekdays from 9-10AM, 4-5PM and 1-2AM, all ET/PT. LIFETIME is the leader in women's television and one of the top-rated basic cable television networks. A diverse, multi-media company, LIFETIME is committed to offering the highest quality entertainment and information programming, and advocating a wide range of issues affecting women and their families. LIFETIME Television, Lifetime Movie Network, Lifetime Real Women and Lifetime Digital (including myLifetime.com) are part of LIFETIME Entertainment Services, a 50/50 joint venture of Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company. Source: Reuters
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:23:26 GMT
Digital Spy - Lead Story********************** Mourning Golden Girl Getty; Emmy Winner Dead at 84 Joal Ryan Tue Jul 22, 10:45 AM ET Estelle Getty was a very good mother. The actress, whose knack for being cast as a maternal unit paid off handsomely when she was cast as Beatrice Arthur's no-holds-barred mother on the long-running TV hit The Golden Girls, died early today at her Los Angeles home, her son Carl Gettleman said. Getty, who was three days shy of her 85th birthday, succumbed to Lewy Body Dementia, a disease with symptoms that mimic Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. A perennial award nominee for The Golden Girls, which ran for seven seasons, from 1985 to 1992, Getty won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her work as Sophia Petrillo, the shuffling octogenarian with the muted self-censor button who was never without her handbag—or a wisecrack. Arthur said today she will miss her former costar. "Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the greatest comic duos ever," Arthur said in a statement. The onscreen relationship worked so well, in fact, that the casual viewer never suspected the offscreen truth that was masked by Getty's granny wig and glasses: The TV daughter was older than the TV mother. (Arthur was born, depending on the source, in either May 1923 or May 1922.) Cast as the most senior of the show's Miami women of a certain age, Getty wasn't even the second oldest cheesecake-eating Golden Girl. Betty White, who played naive Rose, also was older than Getty. Age 62 at the time of the show's premiere, Getty was the least-well-known member of the gang of four, which was rounded out by Rue McClanahan as the hot 'n' steamy Blanche. While her costars had all been prime-time fixtures on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (White) and Maude (Arthur and McClanahan), Getty had been but a bit player whose screen career had begun seven years prior. Theater audiences, at least, were familiar with her work. In 1982, Getty earned a Drama Desk nomination for Torch Song Trilogy, the groundbreaking Harvey Fierstein play that put the middle-aged Getty on the road to "overnight" success. In Torch Song, Getty played Fierstein's in-denial mother. Getty, by her own account, played the mother to "everyone but Attila the Hun," including Cher (Mask) and Sylvester Stallone (Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot). More than anything, Getty played Sophia. NBC deployed her and her character seemingly whenever one of its shows needed a little Golden Girls ratings magic. In all, Getty showed up in Sophia guise on Blossom, Empty Nest and Nurses. In the fall of 1992, months after The Golden Girls finally expired, Getty, White and McClanahan reteamed for the spinoff, The Golden Palace, which moved the franchise from NBC to CBS and their characters from Blanche's home to a hotel. It lasted only one season. Getty continued to work until 2000, when her dementia became more pronounced. Her illness forced her to miss more than one reunion with her signature costars, including the 2003 TV special, The Golden Girls: Their Greatest Moments. Born Estelle Scher on July 25, 1923, Getty set aside early acting ambitions to become a "housewife in Bayshore, Queens," as the New York Times put it in a 1982 article. Getty, then 58, told the newspaper she thought she was too old for Broadway. But given a chance meeting with Fierstein at a party in the 1970s, the novice turned positively Sophia-esque . "I said to him, 'If you're such a hotshot playwright, why don't you write a play with a mother in it—so I can play it,'" Getty said. "A year later he sent me this play to read. He had never seen my work, but decided I could do it." And she could. (Originally published July 22, 2008 at 10:32 a.m. PT.) ************** USA Today - usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-07-22-getty_N.htm
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:27:12 GMT
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:28:15 GMT
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:33:02 GMT
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:37:53 GMT
From Stephen
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:41:14 GMT
Digital Spy - a slideshow of Estelle - www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/news/a114343/in-pictures-estelle-getty.html*********** From Sam *********** 1995 interview with Estelle - www.grandtimes.com/getty.htmlby Kira Albin, interview conducted in 1995 Photos courtesy of Globe Photos, Inc., New York and Green Siegel & Associates, Los Angeles She's bawdy, sassy, meddlesome, endearing and deadpan funny. She's been a mother to just about every actor in Hollywood: Cher (Mask, 1985), Barry Manilow (Copacabana, 1985), and Sylvester Stallone (Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot ). She was Mrs. Beckoff, the mother of Arnold Beckoff, in Broadway's Tony Award-winning Torch Song Trilogy. This perpetual mom writes in her autobiography, If I Knew Then What I Know Now...So What? (Contemporary Books, 1988), "I've played mothers to heroes and mothers to zeroes. I've played Irish mothers, Jewish mothers, Italian mothers, Southern mothers, mothers in plays by Neil Simon and Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. I've played mother to everyone but Attila the Hun." She's Estelle Getty, also known and adored by many as Sophia Petrillo, the feisty, sharp-tongued octogenarian mother from television's Golden Girls, Golden Palace and Empty Nest. The vast quantity of fan mail that Getty receives is tribute to her widespread appeal. Surprisingly, kids are some of her biggest admirers. "I think they look upon me as an old child, because I'm so little," says Getty. "But they love the fact that I talk back to Dorothy" (portrayed by Bea Arthur). Under five feet tall, Getty is a giant in the heart department. She stays involved in many causes, particularly AIDs, and is a spokesperson for Alternative Living for the Aging, a nonprofit organization that locates cooperative housing for seniors. She identifies with the underdogs in life, having experienced discrimination against her height, and now to some extent, her age. "Being tiny has been difficult for me in a business that regarded physicality as the most important part of your life," says Getty. "And I always had to fight against the fact that I could do things even though I was small. And eventually I proved to them I could play mother to six footers." Hollywood's stereotyping of older people is beginning to change, Getty claims, and she credits Golden Girls for some of that. "Before [Golden Girls ], every single older person was a mother or a grandmother. Now there are neighbors, secretaries and people who have jobs who are older people. You see roles they've never been allowed in before." On a less optimistic note, Getty explains that discrimination against older actors is yet to be eliminated because appearance takes precedence over the resume. "If you're a beautiful older woman, then you may get work," Getty remarks. "But if you're a plain older woman, or a fat older woman, or a short older woman, you'll find it harder to get a job." By choice, Getty is currently retired despite her disavowal of such a concept in her autobiography. "I lied," she chuckles, in response to the question of her discrepancy. "This is the first time in 14 years that I have been off from work. So it's kind of nice. But I've only been off for about four or five months. I don't know if I'll be this brave later on." Getty's accomplishments over the last five to ten years have left her feeling satisfied, at least for the moment. Torch Song Trilogy was a daring and successful production. "It changed the face of the American theater," says Getty. "I thought I had reached my point of highest success when I did that play." Then six weeks after arriving in Hollywood, Getty was cast in Golden Girls, a series which she believes "changed the face of television." "I don't have very much more to prove, and I'd like to stop while I'm still ahead, before people tell me I should stop." Getty is a harsh self-critic. She's not particularly proud of her autobiography, calling it, "a thin, little book" and reveals that she hasn't seen most of her shows because she doesn't like watching herself. And while she enjoys the attention and fan mail that are part of her celebrity status, she has not accepted that people are awestruck by her. Illustrative of her attitude is the story she tells of sitting in a restaurant with her son while a woman with blue-green hair stares at her in-tensely. Baffled by the attention of this woman, her son gently reminds her that she's being stared at because she's Estelle Getty. "It never occurred to me," remarks Getty. "I never think of myself that way, and just as well. I still have the same friends, same outlook. Nothing has changed for me." On a material level, there are changes: a new house (purchased only two months ago) with a huge garden, pool, gazebo, two bars, four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Getty, having never owned a house before, is still stunned when she wakes up every morning. But a nouveau riche of Hollywood she is not, having lived through the Depression and knowing what it is to need money for food. To the chagrin of her managers and agents, Getty dared to park her used, orange Toyota Tercel on the Golden Girls studio lot long after the show became a "megahit." As she revealed in her autobiography, not everyone was amused. "People started coming up to me in the hall: 'Estelle, I'm sorry to tell you this, but someone took your parking space. There's a Toyota in your spot.' 'No,' I'd say. 'No one took my spot. That's my car.' "They would grin, certain that I was joking. When they realized I wasn't, they were aghast." It wasn't until Getty's business manager informed her that her Toyota could no longer be deducted, having fully depreciated, that she finally consented to purchasing a new car. The trappings of success are incidental; it is the work that compels and drives Getty. During taping season, the cast produced a show a week. "It's hard work and we were very conscientious of the quality of the show, of making it the best." The show thrived from good script writing and the synergy of the cast: Estelle Getty, Beatrice Arthur, Betty White and Rue McClanahan. "We sure were simpatico," she recalls. "We'd laugh at the same jokes, we had the same feelings about animals and about the world. It was quite remarkable." On one occasion the four refused to do a show that depicted them raising minks for furs. Getty says they were in unison about their likes and dislikes. Of the four actresses, Getty was the only one who was new to the genre of television, having spent all of her career on the stage. But despite 40 years of experience, Getty still had stage fright. She recounts the experience, "Every Friday night, when it was over I would say, 'that wasn't so bad' and then the next Friday would come along and I'd be struck with terror. I fight everything." Getty's an unconventional person, few would disagree with that. At the age of four, when her parents took her to see a vaudeville show at the New York Academy of Music, Getty's life changed dramatically. "I became an actress in my heart and soul," she writes. "And that's how it's been for my entire life." At a time when nice girls didn't stay out at night or mix with strangers, Getty was doing just that to pursue her theatrical career. Her long-suffering parents had no idea why she was so difficult. Getty also has a very unorthodox marriage. Her husband of 48 years, Arthur Gettleman (Getty's stage name is a derivative of his surname), currently lives in Florida, while Getty resides full-time in Hollywood. They see each other every few months or less, an arrangement that works for both of them. Except for when their two sons were young, Getty was constantly on tour. "Arthur was always very supportive of my career. We just have very different lives. "He likes a quiet, unblustering life, whereas I'm the party person." Unusual also is 'golden girl' Sophia Petrillo (Getty's character) an 80-year-old Italian mother with a saucy mouth, ribald humor and trademark purse from which she is never separated. Getty writes about a scene during a Golden Girls episode when Sophia is angrily cleaning out her purse and is asked by one of the other women what she's doing. "'I'm cleaning out my purse,' Sophia says with an edge. "'Sophia, why are you so angry?' "'To tell you the truth, I haven't had sex in 15 years, and it's starting to get on my nerves!'" People ask if Sophia is a role model. The question makes Getty "uneasy." "Sophia's not a real person. She's a character on a TV show. So was Mister Ed," writes Getty in her autobiography. "At the same time, though, I can see how senior citizens can look at her and feel good. I like the fact that she has opinions, she's feisty, she makes her wants and needs known. If watching Sophia reminds people that they can still be vital, vociferous, and vigorous, then I'm all for it." While Getty is aware that Sophia is fictional, many of her fans appear ignorant of this fact, approaching her on the street and talking in Italian, asking her questions about her late husband and inquiring about the three other women she lives with. Most humorous are those admirers who approach and say in nervous confusion, "You're my biggest fan." "People assume that I'm wiser than I am because I'm somewhat successful," Getty explains. Her response: "Age does not bring you wisdom, age brings you wrinkles. If you're dumb when you're young, you're going to be dumb when you're old." But Getty does have wisdom to impart to others. "Older people are important, they're viable, they can live the life they choose and not be grunged under. It makes me happy to see that older people are having a greater impact on society." Sound advice from America's boldest mother: "Don't allow people to say, 'You're old, you can't do this.' You can do anything you want to do."
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:46:08 GMT
*************** Entertainment Weekly - www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1100651,00.html It's a widely accepted television dictum: Old people are neither trendy nor sexy, and young viewers definitely don't want to watch shows about them. But 20 years ago, on Sept. 14, 1985, NBC went against the industry's ageist grain and unleashed four of the sassiest seniors in TV history. The Golden Girls — the brainchild of Soap creative team Susan Harris, Tony Thomas, and Paul Junger Witt — was a risk for the then-resurgent NBC. Television comedy was just emerging from a creative drought (sound familiar?) and NBC was asking an all-female cast (another dicey idea) to lure fans to Saturday night (yikes!), where viewership had flagged since the '70s glory days of CBS' All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Bob Newhart Show. ''Girls was the last show to bring viewers back to Saturdays,'' says The WB's Garth Ancier, who served as NBC's vice president of current comedy development from 1982 to 1986. ''It broke a lot of rules.'' Over 180 episodes, The Golden Girls followed four well-dressed women living together — and sharing lots of cheesecake — in a Miami home with a spacious lanai. They were led by imposing substitute teacher Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur), who maintained an arsenal of withering put-downs and killer glares. Homeowner Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan) was an oversexed Southern belle who refused to acknowledge her age. Betty White played Rose Nylund, a dense Pollyanna who told rambling stories about her Minnesota hometown, St. Olaf. And Dorothy's diminutive Sicilian mother, Sophia (Estelle Getty), was a former resident of Shady Pines nursing home who, because of a stroke that had destroyed the tact region of her brain, spouted riotously blunt one-liners. The show premiered at No. 1 — a rare achievement — with an estimated 44 million viewers, and it resided in the top 10 for six consecutive seasons. The 10-time Emmy winner has been spoofed on Saturday Night Live and at the MTV Movie Awards, referenced on The O.C., and singled out as Sex and the City's progenitor. Its writing staff was also something of a comedy farm team: Marc Cherry now heads Desperate Housewives. ''Golden Girls is definitely the model for any female ensemble show,'' he says. ''You can trace Gabrielle right back to Blanche. She's very selfish, but you still like her because she's cute and funny.'' Longtime Girls staffer Mitch Hurwitz, meanwhile, created Fox's Emmy winner Arrested Development. ''It completely informs what we do here,'' says Hurwitz. ''The name of the rehab center that Lucille Bluth went into was called Shady Pines as a little homage.'' Adds Warren Littlefield, who was NBC's senior vice president of comedy development when Girls premiered: ''There is nothing trendy about this show. There are no tricks. It's a classic. I love going back to it.'' So do we — especially now, when broadcast networks have all but abandoned Saturday-night programming. In honor of The Golden Girls' 20th anniversary, we asked the actors (except for the now-retired Getty, 82, who is ill) and the creative team behind one of television's most enduring hits to share their memories. I. A SENIOR MOMENT On an August weekend at NBC's Burbank studios in 1984, the network's stars were filming what Littlefield calls ''some bulls--- special'' to tout the coming fall slate. In a skit promoting Miami Vice, Remington Steele secretary Doris Roberts sparred with 63-year-old Night Court bailiff Selma Diamond, who kept mistaking the title for Miami Nice. The execs in the audience were amused, and they wondered if there was a series in the geriatric humor unfolding before them. Soon after, Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas were in Littlefield's office pitching a show about a female lawyer. He nixed the idea, but then asked if Witt's wife, Susan Harris, would be interested in fleshing out Miami Nice as a pilot instead. HARRIS: Paul came home and said, ''There's this idea, but you're not going to want to do it.'' And I said, ''That's right. I don't want to do anything. But what is it?'' He got me when he said the words old women. It was a demographic that had never been addressed. Harris went to work on the pilot script, which called for Dorothy to be played by a ''Bea Arthur type'' and included a fifth character, Coco, a gay male housekeeper. When he got the script, Littlefield says he was ''running all over the house grabbing anybody who would listen. I kept reading scenes to them and saying 'God, this is brilliant!''' He greenlit the pilot, and Cosby Show director Jay Sandrich — who'd helmed Soap for much of its run — agreed to direct the episode. Casting calls began. MCCLANAHAN: Before I started reading it, I said, ''Ohhh, this is a winner.'' I called my agent and said I was perfect for the role of Blanche, to which she said, ''They want you to read for Rose. They want Betty White for the role of Blanche.'' WHITE: It was the best script that I'd read, maybe, in life. You get so many bad scripts sent your way in this business, so many dogs. And I shouldn't use that term because I love dogs. Worried that McClanahan and White were being asked to play roles too similar to their previous TV personae (McClanahan played Arthur's ditzy best friend Vivian on Maude; White won two Emmys as the vampy Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show), Sandrich asked the women to consider a last-minute switch at their auditions. SANDRICH: I said to [Rue], ''You're really wonderful, but I don't believe for a second that you're innocent. Would you read Blanche?'' WHITE: Ruesy took Blanche out into orbit where I never would have gone. She flew off like a butterfly with that role. MCCLANAHAN: I gave [Blanche] the assurance that my sister has always had: Walk into a group of men and just lay 'em low! I was using this phony accent that sounded like a cross between British and Southern and cornball. Producers wanted Arthur to play Dorothy, but first they saw Elaine Stritch, who recounted a disastrous tryout in her 2002 Broadway show Elaine Stritch at Liberty. ''She just didn't have her act together,'' says Littlefield. ''It was sad.'' Under the impression that Arthur didn't want to participate — Arthur says she doesn't recall the specifics — Harris asked McClanahan if she could persuade her old castmate to take the role. ARTHUR: I flipped when I read the script! After all of the crap I'd been sent, here was something so bright and adult and fabulously funny. I guess they assumed that I didn't want to do it. MCCLANAHAN: I said, ''Bea, what's the matter with you? This is only going to be the biggest hit TV has seen since I don't know when.'' And Bea said [deepening her voice], ''Ruuuue, I don't want to play Maude and Vivian meet Betty White.'' And I said, ''No! Betty's playing the Vivian and I'm the Sue Ann!'' ''Oh,'' she said, ''now, that's interesting,'' and then hung up. Thomas, meanwhile, spotted Getty playing Harvey Fierstein's pushy mother on Broadway in Torch Song Trilogy, and asked her to try out. The TV novice nailed her audition. THOMAS: She was frigging brilliant! I could not breathe when she read her lines. II. LADIES FIRST With the cast in place, the pilot was shot in the spring of 1985. ARTHUR: Everyone fell in love that day. I fell in love with the relationship between Dorothy and Sophia. That was one of the comic greats of all time. WHITE: You don't get many evenings like that in this business. I still get goose bumps just thinking about it. SANDRICH: I had to keep cutting to Bea's reactions because once she gets the camera on her and the laughs start, you just leave it there. I had to be careful not to give her too much of the show. Producers eventually nixed Coco, who appears only in the pilot. ''It was an embarrassment of riches,'' says Harris. ''We didn't even have enough time to write for the women.'' NBC revamped its Saturday lineup and paired the series with another newcomer, 227. The block worked, grabbing huge ratings — and was surprisingly popular among young viewers. TERRY HUGHES (director, 1985-90): For kids, it was like watching a bunch of naughty grannies. A whole generation recognized their own grandmothers on that screen. HARRIS: They especially loved Estelle. Here was a woman talking back to her daughter and giving her so much grief. MCCLANAHAN: I got oodles of letters from kids who wanted to move in with us. My youngest fan was a 3-year-old who stopped me in an elevator. Now, you know that he wasn't catching on to the double entendres. Despite the laughs, early tapings were stressful: White and Arthur had recently lost their mothers, and Getty was beginning to forget her lines — an annoyance that exacerbated her already feisty nature. ARTHUR: Right from the beginning, Estelle had problems. We would have to give her cue cards. WHITE: She was in trouble. She would write lines on the salt and pepper shakers so she could remember them. MCCLANAHAN: Estelle was never happy. Something panicked her. By Friday nights, she was a nervous wreck. The scripts, loaded with details about the ladies' healthy, sometimes ribald sex lives, weren't thrilling NBC's standards and practices department, either. ANCIER: There was an early episode in which Rose brought a guy home and slept with him, and he died in her bed. The department sent a note saying it was unacceptable for air. They had issues with a line about the racket coming from Rose's bedroom. They said it was okay for guys to express themselves, but not women. I'll never forget Susan sitting across from them in a meeting on the set in her sunglasses, saying ''Let me get this straight: It's NBC's corporate position that women are not allowed to express themselves during orgasm, but men are?'' It was very tense. HARRIS: Yeah, that does sound like me. My memory of this is very vague. They had their notes, but generally, we won. In July 1986, Girls cemented its status as TV's hottest new hit by earning 15 Emmy nominations. That September, the show won awards for technical direction, writing, lead actress (White), and outstanding comedy series. (Every cast member eventually won a statuette — a feat achieved by few television shows.) But the evening's joy was hampered by the competition between the four actresses — and a faux pas that still haunts Harris. MCCLANAHAN: Bea was very unhappy that she didn't win. She was fit to be tied. ARTHUR: Oh, what bulls---! Look, we weren't ingenues. I really resent that. Oh, Jesus! WHITE: After that night, they warned me to be careful. We just pretended that it hadn't happened. HARRIS: It was a horrible evening. I had never been [personally] nominated for anything, so when I got the nomination for writing the pilot, it was very exciting. I was up against another GG episode [which I didn't write], but everybody kept telling me that I was going to win. And that night, Milton Berle came out, announced the nominees, and said, ''The winner is The Golden Girls!'' So I started to get up. Then he said the names of the guys who wrote the other episode that was in contention. I was stunned. Paul had to pull me back down into my seat. At the end of the telecast, all of the winners went up on stage and I was sitting in my seat, watching everyone from my show celebrate. It was appalling. III. GOING THROUGH THE CHANGE The following year, Harris finally won her Emmy (as a producer), and Girls went on to tackle such topics as AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, and chronic fatigue syndrome, which Harris suffers from. The show was such a success that in 1988 it led to the creation of Empty Nest, a sitcom starring former Soap star Richard Mulligan as a doctor who lived nearby. Eventually Hughes — dubbed ''the fifth Golden Girl'' — was lured away after receiving an offer to helm his first feature film. Hurwitz and Cherry joined the writing staff in Girls' final two seasons, and the humor became bawdier and more cutting. But the writers also struggled to come up with new stories for the ladies. HURWITZ: We all became more competitive. It was about trying to top somebody else's jokes, and that was reflected in the show. But a more generous way to look at it is that it was probably a more honest depiction of what would happen in year 6 of these women living together. CHERRY: The marching orders were not to change — and the women got stuck in the same place: Rose got dumber, Blanche got sluttier, Dorothy got more sarcastic. WITT: Part of it was attrition and fatigue. You look at some of the latter episodes and realize that they weren't about enough other than being funny. Arthur apparently agreed, and in 1991 she decided it was time to hang up Dorothy's caftans for good: ''Playing those things got a little usual.'' On May 9, 1992, 27 million viewers tuned in for ''One Flew Out of the Cuckoo's Nest,'' the hour-long series finale, in which Dorothy marries Blanche's uncle Lucas (Leslie Nielsen) after a whirlwind courtship. ARTHUR: I knew that I had to leave. I didn't want to do any more episodic television. It was in the beginning of the seventh season that I thought, We've had it. Let's leave when we're really at the height. MCCLANAHAN: They had to give [Bea] the moon to get her to come back for a seventh year. Had she continued past that, I think we could have run for a few more years as The Golden Girls. WHITE: I remember walking through the last season of Mary being so sad, but with The Golden Girls, it wasn't so much sadness as it was a deep realization that none of us would ever be a part of something so special again. With the Girls' lanai closed, the three remaining actresses accepted a surprising new offer: a spin-off. On Sept. 18, 1992, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia moved into The Golden Palace, in which the trio operated a South Beach hotel. Hurwitz ran the show, which also starred Cheech Marin and an unknown named Don Cheadle. Its Friday-night premiere on CBS — where it moved after NBC and Witt-Thomas-Harris Productions reportedly failed to agree on the number of episodes that would be produced — notched so-so ratings, and Palace was canceled after one season. WITT: The decision to keep going was based on keeping everyone working. We felt a responsibility. In retrospect, we didn't have as much to say as we thought we did. MCCLANAHAN: They should have hired a new actress to replace Bea. We had a good show but nobody saw it. It was buried. THOMAS: We were on thin ice with the whole damn premise. Every time I see Don Cheadle, I apologize. IV. THE GILDED AGE The Golden Girls joined Lifetime's lineup in 1997 and quickly became one of the network's most popular shows; nightly airings still attract roughly 1.2 million viewers. (Last month, the network began airing The Golden Palace.) Witt and Thomas went on to produce series including The John Larroquette Show and Pearl and films like Insomnia, and they continue to develop scripts. Harris, meanwhile, is writing a play. The rest of the cast remains busy: White now appears as cantankerous Catherine Piper on ABC's Boston Legal, a role that earned her a 15th Emmy nod last year; Arthur occasionally takes her Tony-nominated show Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends on the road; McClanahan is currently starring as Madame Morrible in the Broadway musical Wicked and is writing her autobiography, My First Five Husbands. They all agree that The Golden Girls is one of TV's all-time greatest sitcoms. MCCLANAHAN: I knew that I was doing something revolutionary in its quality, but I had no idea of the effect that it was going to have. ARTHUR: It was so antiestablishment that everybody loved it. WHITE: I taste the glory each and every time I meet a fan. It's what you dream about, why you get into this business in the first place. It was the peak of everybody's career.
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:46:55 GMT
EW on Estelle's Passing Estelle Getty, best known for her portrayal of acid-tongued Sicilian mother Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls, died Tuesday morning (July 22), three days short of her 85th birthday. She had been battling advanced dementia for years. According to her website, she passed away in her own home, surrounded by family. Born Estelle Scher in New York City on July 25, 1923, Getty started out her career in the Yiddish theater, but her focus soon shifted to settling down and raising a family with Arthur Gettleman, whom she married in 1946. They remained together until Arthur's death in 2004. She didn't return to acting until many years later, making her first screen appearance in 1978's Team-Mates, followed by small parts in Tootsie and Mask. But it was her 1982 role on Broadway as Harvey Fierstein's interfering mother in the play Torch Song Trilogy that catapulted her into the limelight and landed her the role of Sophia on The Golden Girls in 1985. Always ready with a cutting remark, Sophia was an integral part of the series' character and earned Getty seven consecutive Supporting Actress Emmy nominations between 1986 and 1992, including a win in 1988. Her performance also earned three Golden Globe nominations, including a win for Leading Role in a Comedy series in 1986. She also reprised the role in several spin-off shows, including The Golden Palace and Empty Nest. Getty is survived by sons Carl and Barry Gettleman, a brother, David Scher, and a sister, Rosilyn Howard.
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:49:53 GMT
People magazine - www.people.com/people/article/0,,20213964,00.html?xid=rss-topheadlines Estelle Getty, who won an Emmy and a Golden Globe as the tart-tongued Sophia Petrillo – mother of Bea Arthur's character – on TV's The Golden Girls, has died. She was 84. Getty's longtime manager, Alan Siegel, told PEOPLE on Tuesday: "As of 5:35 this morning, surrounded by her family in her Hollywood Hills home, Estelle Getty passed away peacefully in her sleep of natural causes. Her family and close friends thank everyone for being so loving and supportive of Estelle in her last few years." For many years, Getty had suffered with Lewy's Body Dementia, which has been described as a type of Alzheimer's disease. Also starring with Betty White and Rue McClanahan on the NBC sitcom, Getty's Sophia resulted in her receiving seven Emmy nominations, and a win in 1988. Equally winning were her well-delivered insults on the show. A typical Petrillo put-down: "I think there's a connection between your brain and wallpaper paste." Daughter of Immigrants Specializing in playing "old" (Getty, a contemporary of Arthur's, was only in her early 60s when she was cast as octogenarian Sophia), the future TV star was born Estelle Scher, the daughter of Polish immigrants, on New York's Lower East Side. From age 5 "I wanted to be [movie queen] Claudette Colbert," Getty told PEOPLE in 1986. Desperate for an acting career, Estelle took lessons – then, in 1946, she took a husband: retail-glass businessman Arthur Gettleman, whose name she would later adapt as a stage professional. But first, she raised the Gettleman's two sons, Carl and Barry. Eventually there were off-off Broadway roles, then Harvey Fierstein cast her as his overbearing mother in Torch Song Trilogy, which opened on Broadway in 1982. The spotlight from that show resulted in her landing the role of Sophia. Arthur Gettleman died in 2004. Her sons survive her. "She was loved throughout the world in six continents, and if they loved sitcoms in Antarctica she would have been loved on seven continents," Carl Gettleman told the Associated Press Tuesday. "She was one of the most talented comedic actresses who ever lived." Funeral services will be private, said Siegel. ************* "Picture it, Sicily, 1912 ... " And so began most of Estelle Getty's memorable moments as the cranky, spunky and hilariously insulting Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls. The New Yorker -- who was nominated seven times for an Emmy, winning in 1988 -- turned out her share of scene stealers. Who can forget when she told the raunchy Blanche (Rue McClanahan), "You look like a prostitute." Or when she asked Rose (Betty White) if she and a beau "played find the cannolli." Or how she told daughter Dorothy (Bea Arthur), "Remember Dorothy, jealousy is a very ugly thing. And so are you in anything backless." Of course she wasn't always playing mean. There's the scene where Dorothy and Sophia dress up like Sonny Bono and Cher. Sadly, Getty passed away at her Hollywood Hills home Tuesday, surrounded by family and friends. Source - www.people.com/people/article/0,,20423443.html
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:51:33 GMT
from gg_fan_75
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:51:58 GMT
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Post by Freddy Peterson on Jul 8, 2014 1:52:44 GMT
From Jim/Freddy Peterson:
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