Beatrice Arthur (May 13, 1922 - April 25, 2009)

This loss is so very sad....another 'Golden Girl' has left us. Beatrice Arthur spent the early days of her career on Broadway...mainly in the 1940's and 1950's. In the 1950's she began to appear on fresh television shows like "Studio One", "Caesar's Hour" and "Kraft Television Theatre." By the time the last sentence in the book of pages of Beatrice's life was written she appeared on "Laugh-In", "Soap", "The Mary Tyler Moore Hour", "Dave's World", "Malcolm in the Middle", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Futurama", "The Perry Como Show", "The George Gobel Show", "Saturday Night Live", "The Mike Douglas Show", "Ellen", "The View", "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and many many other tribute shows, reunion shows, and award shows. In 1971 she was called on by her old friend Norman Lear to guest star as Cousin Maude in an episode of his hit series "All in the Family." Cousin Maude was the perfect liberal foil to the bigoted Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor). After that lone appearance the president of CBS television called Norman Lear and told him to develop a series for Beatrice and her Maude character. "Maude" debuted in September 1972 and was a smash hit. By the end of its first season the show was talked about all over the US. Maude Findlay became the first woman on prime time television to have an abortion. After that the show was world famous forever. "Maude" closed its doors in 1978 after six successful seasons. Beatrice decided that six seasons was enough and it would be good to go out on top. Between 1978 and 1985 she kept herself in the spotlight with a number of television guest appearances. Finally in mid-1985 after a set of interesting circumstances she found herself getting ready to play Dorothy Zbornak on "The Golden Girls." The show featured Dorothy as the center character living with her mother and two roommates in Miami. Betty White played naive Minnesota farm girl Rose Nylund, Rue McClanahan gave life to the man hungry southern belle Blanche Devereaux and the part of Dorothy's fiesty Sicilian mother was brought to life by Estelle Getty. "The Golden Girls" enjoyed a highly successful run from 1985 to 1992 and became beloved across the world. By the end of the seventh season Beatrice decided much like she did with "Maude" that it was time to call it quits. Estelle, Rue and Betty continued on for one more season playing the same characters in a show called "The Golden Palace." Beatrice made two guest appearances on the spin-off series. Her appearance on "The Golden Palace" was sweet and sad. At the very end Dorothy realizes that Rose, Blanche and her mother have adjusted very well to their new life and she sees that she is no longer needed as much as she once was. For the record, the last time the four women appeared on screen together in their respective roles was on "The Golden Palace" episode 9 "Seems Like Old Times" Part 2 and the airdate was November 6, 1992. Beatrice was brilliant as famous stage star Vera Charles in the film version of Mame in 1974 and I can only assume she was that way on stage or else she wouldn't have won a Tony award in 1966. From listening to the soundtrack I can say that I love her performance in the number Bosom Buddies with both Angela Lansbury and Lucille Ball. She also had a song of her own in Mame which was called The Man in the Moon. In the film she utters classic lines like "I was never in the Chorus" and "I'll have you know I once played Mother Cabrini! During Lent!" Beatrice Arthur....has left us. However, only her body is gone...her spirit will live on forever in all the wonderful things she has done. Both "The Golden Girls" and "Maude" along with Mame are available on DVD so the world can continue to laugh and cry with Beatrice forever. She was many things to many people but to me she'll always be one of the girls.