"[38] Both actresses had dramatically different training and acting backgrounds; Saks commented on White's habit of breaking the fourth wall to engage and joke with the studio audience during breaks between filming, which Arthur found unprofessional. Bill Dana played Sophia's brother Angelo and her father. The story follows four older single women (three widows and one divorced) who share a home in Miami, Florida. 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. [39] In 2011, White stated that she believed it was her "positive attitude" and perky demeanor that got on Arthur's nerves. The Golden Girls ran for seven seasons from 1985 to 1992. Writer and producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason created a sitcom with this kind of image as a "four women" show, which became Designing Women on CBS. consisted of two back-to-back episodes of the sitcom: "Break-In" (season one, episode eight) and "Isn't It Romantic?" Why is Good UI/UX Design Imperative for Business Success? Rose's age is the easiest to track down, thanks to Dorothy openly saying it in Season 1, Episode 22, "Job Hunting." During a conversation where Rose discusses her difficulty finding a new job after losing her previous one at the grief counseling center, Dorothy reveals that Rose is 55. It won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series and two. This indicates that she was likely in her late 40s when the show began. [32], Getty, who went through a three-hour transformation to become Sophia, wore heavy make-up, thick glasses, and a white wig to look the part. Mulligan and Manoff were alumni from one of Susan Harris' earlier shows, Soap. 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. Arthur felt the characters had been in every possible scenario, and wanted to end the series while it was still successful. According to the show, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is 55 . Initially, White was considered for the role of Blanche Devereaux, which eventually went to Rue McClanahan. Based on the assumption that Season 1 and Season 2 took place in the same year, Rose would have been 55 at the start of The Golden Girls. Plus, Sophia was a great cook. 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. Blanche Devereaux, Dorothy Zbornak, and Sophia Petrillo managed the single life as seniors in Miami for seven seasons. However, it did so from a very different perspective. Betty White was actually the oldest Golden Girl. If technically supported by the home television, this system allowed their audience to watch the show either in the dubbed German version (by default) or the original English version. [62] Evans generally dressed the actresses in expensive pieces and high-quality fabrics, despite the recurring theme that the four characters were struggling with money, because, "The main idea was to make them look good. That was the case. Blanche Elizabeth Marie Devereaux (ne Hollingsworth) is one of the four, fictional, main characters on the highly-acclaimed, revered, and well-received 1985-1992 NBC situation-comedy/sit-com TV series, The Golden Girls, and its spin-off, The Golden Palace. How Old Were the Golden Girls Characters Supposed to Be? While the characters' ages on the series seemed fairly clear-cutBlanche, Rose and Dorothy were in their mid-50s, while Sophia was Dorothy's widowed, elderly motherit may surprise fans to know that the actual ages of the actresses playing them were completely different. Celebrities Sophia is to join her, but in the end, she stays behind with the other women in Miami. Blanche was probably around 50 when the show began, rather than 54. RELATED: How Old Were the Golden Girls Supposed to Be? In the pilot episode, the three are joined by Dorothy's 80-year-old widowed mother, Sophia Petrillo (Getty), after the retirement home where she has been living has burned down. The show dealt with many controversial issues, such as coming out and same-sex marriage,[75] elder care, homelessness, poverty, HIV/AIDS and discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, US immigration policy, sexual harassment, teenaged pregnancy, artificial insemination, adultery, bad medical care, sexism, miscegenation and interracial marriage, antisemitism, age discrimination, environmentalism, addiction to pain killers, problem gambling, nuclear war, death, and assisted suicide.[76]. When Arthur first received the script for The Golden Girls, she loved the concept of having senior women as the stars of the show. The Golden Girls first aired on September 14, 1985, and it continues to appeal to both young and older audiences. Sophia was 86 by the series' end. Blanche was probably around 50, Dorothy was likely in her late 40s, Rose was probably closer to 51, and Sophia was likely closer to 79. The Golden Palace, a spinoff of the successful sitcom The Golden Girls, will make its streaming debut on Hulu early next year.. On Jan. 10, just one week before Betty White's 100th birthday on Jan. 17, the single season of the sitcom featuring three of the four main characters from the original series -- Rose Nyland (White), Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan) and Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty . : 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! 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. However, there are some clues that can be found in the show itself. One such source is the actors who played the characters. Luckily, Susan Harris didnt lose her spark after Soap concluded, as she included much of the humor and sharp wit that made Soap popular in The Golden Girls as well. [52], The house's address was mentioned as being 6151 Richmond Street, Miami. Before The Golden Girls, she was most renowned for creating the series Soap, which parodied daytime soap operas such as The Young and the Restless. [112], In 2017, a Golden Girls-themed eatery, Rue la Rue Cafe owned by Rue McClanahan's close friend Michael La Rue, who inherited many of the star's personal belongings and in turn decorated the restaurant with them, opened in the Washington Heights section of the New York City borough of Manhattan. RELATED: Christina Ricci's Wednesday Addams Is Iconic for Pushing Boundaries. The Golden Girls: How the Classic Sitcom Ended, Christina Ricci's Wednesday Addams Is Iconic for Pushing Boundaries. For simplicity's sake, each season is considered a separate year, as the show ran for seven seasons. She thought an accentuated Southern accent would be sexy and strong and attractive to men. [3] In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Golden Girls number 54 on its list of the 60 Best Series of All Time. This "created a great deal of stress and competitiveness amongst those of us who weren't in that inner sanctum. "[60] Anna Wyckoff of the Costume Designers Guild wrote, "Evans took the direction from the producers to create a vibrant look for the four mature leads, and ran with itredefining what 'dressing your age' looked like. One, while the characters ages on the show appeared to be quite. Their hair also hasnt greyed (or is colored), and they style their hair in a more contemporary way. The initial pilot was aired as the 1987 Golden Girls episode "Empty Nests", and starred Paul Dooley and Rita Moreno as George and Renee Corliss, a married couple living next to the Golden Girls characters, who face empty nest syndrome after their teenaged daughter goes to college. (Note: Is this article not meeting your expectations? Hulu estimated that over 11 million hours were spent viewing this sitcom in 2020 alone, making it one of the top ten most binge-watched series on the streaming service. Blanche was inspired by the popular fictional characters Blanche DuBois (from A Streetcar Named Desire, a famous 1947 Broadway play written by Tennessee Williams) and Vivien Leigh, who portrayed the same character in the 1951 film adaptation alongside Marlon Brando. The owner of the house is a widow named Blanche Devereaux (McClanahan), who was joined by fellow widow Rose Nylund (White) and divorce Dorothy Zbornak (Arthur) after they both responded to an ad on the bulletin board of a local grocery store a year before the start of the series. [48][49] Her co-stars, in an interview, said that her disease had progressed to the point that she was not able to hold conversations with them or recognize them. How old were The Golden Girls supposed to be on the show? She is passionate about Princess Diana, the Titanic, the Romanovs, and Egypt amongst other things. How Old Were the Golden Girls Supposed to Be?,The Golden Girls' ages were never quite revealed on screen. Estelle Getty, however, was 62 in 1985, making her 17 years younger than the character she portrayed. Getty was the first actress to be cast, and her role was intended to make the rest of the characters appear younger. Initially, the producers wanted Betty White to play Blanche because she had been famous for playing promiscuous characters in the past. Because none of the other Golden Girls explicitly disclose their ages, the logical process begins with Dorothy. As of September 8, 2021 all 7 seasons of The Golden Girls were made available to stream on Disney+ in Canada. The adventures of Dorothy (Bea Arthur), Blanche (Rue McClanahan), Rose ( universally beloved Betty White) and Sophia (Estelle Getty) -- four older women who lived in a Miami home together -- took audiences by storm and provided representation to a group generally overlooked by television of the time. 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 reconsidered, however, after hearing that McClanahan and White had switched roles. Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo in the 1985 sitcom The Golden Girls (Credit: NBC). In this article, we will explore the evidence and try to uncover the true ages of the Golden Girls. These ages seem to contradict what is stated in the show, suggesting that the characters may actually be younger than their stated ages. Despite her enjoyment in playing Dorothy, the show eventually concluded when Bea Arthur decided to depart the show in 1992. This could be because the writers wanted to create an atmosphere of timelessness, allowing the show to appeal to viewers of all ages. Blanche (played by Rue McClanahan) was thought to be around 47 years old in the first season of Golden Girls. Its time to look back at the golden years with our favorite Golden Girls. Betty White was 63 years old when the show premiered in 1985, yet she managed to play a younger persona perfectly. On the other hand, the women in And Just Like That dress in a trendy, modern style. None of the other Golden Girls outright state their ages, so Dorothy is where the deductive work begins. Sophia had her 50th birthday in April 1956, making her character 79 years old when the series premiered in 1985, according to a flashback scene in Season 2s , 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, Sophia then recounts to Dorothy the account of the night Dorothy was conceived in Season 3, Episode 5, Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself. Sophia claims it happened in 1931, so Dorothy was most likely born in 1932, based on her sign. Did Rue McClanahan have a Southern accent? 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.