BLANCHE: Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a long hot steamy bath with only enough water to cover my perky bosoms…
SOPHIA: You’re only going to sit in an inch of water?
-They’re baa-aack! This month (and every month after, for the winners of OUTinPerth’s Golden Girls giveaway – visit www.www.outinperth.com/index.php/giveaways/) sees the imminent return of the four senior citizens who made growing old disgracefully look awesome decades before Germaine Greer started doing it – and The Girls, unlike Germaine, are supposed to be funny.
THE GOLDEN GIRLS season 4 is imminent on dvd, so it’s time to exercise your Pink Dollars, people – this show is such a Gay icon that if you don’t rush out and nab one as soon as it becomes available, Bea Arthur will personally track you down, pull your Gay Gene right out of you and give it to someone more deserving, like the male cast of GREY’S ANATOMY.
Unless you’ve been living in the mud thirty feet beneath a billabong being raised by a family of kindly Platypuses for the past twenty years, you’re probably aware of THE GOLDEN GIRLS, a multiple-Emmy award winning US sitcom that began in 1985 and ran for the next seven years. It’s a hilariously funny, camp sitcom about four women- three in their early to mid sixties and one elderly- who share a house in the heart of the Florida retirement district. In an age where television seems to bring out bland sitcoms with the regularity- and mirth quotient- of a bowel movement, THE GOLDEN GIRLS shone because of the genuine chemistry and love between the four lead actresses, innovative storylines that have since become sitcom staples, and dialogue so sharp the dvds should come with a free box of bandages.
ROSE NYLUND (Betty White): A Swedish-American from the somewhat fictional Midwest town of Saint Olaf, Rose was a little bit..Naive. Not so kindly, and according to Sophia:
ROSE [on St. Olaf]: Ned was sort of the town idiot.
SOPHIA: When, on your days off?
-Fond of telling long, complex and very funny stories about growing up in St Olaf (usually involving cows, vegetables and/or non-existent Swedish words, Rose never lets her dimwittedness get in the way of her general niceness. A former Ziegfield showgirl in her youth, Betty White is now Eighty-Six and still working, often playing off her stereotypical nice image with nasty or risqué material (at a recent Roast for Bill Shatner, she spotted Farrah Fawcett: “We have so much in common, Farrah. I’m in my Eighties, and that was the last decade in which you mattered!â€Â). Interestingly, Betty White initially won the role of slutty Blanche Devereux and Rue McLanahan was to be Rose, until it was suggested they switch roles.
DOROTHY ZBORNAK (Bea Arthur): Sophia’s long-suffering, seemingly eternally single daughter, Dorothy is regarded by many fans as the glue that held the show together. Certainly her unflappable, deadpan delivery, acid-one liners, large heightand deep, baritone voice made her a favourite with Gay men the world over.
ROSE: How did she die? (Dorothy’s wheelchair stricken grandma)
DOROTHY: You know, we don’t know. She left one night in her wheelchair and never came back. The next day, the neighborhood boys had a go-kart with two really big back wheels.
-When Bea Arthur decided to leave the show at the end of the Seventh Season, the writers’ wisely chose to end the series with her. In real life, Bea Arthur is also eighty-six years old, and still makes occasional guest appearances on movies and television.
BLANCHE DEVEREAUX (RUE MCLANAHAN): Another favourite with Gay audiences, Blanche is a stereotypical Southern belle and a complete man-hungry tramp. The girls from SEX AND THE CITY would die of dehydration trying to equal Blanche’s man-record.
ROSE: Is it possible to love two men at the same time?
BLANCHE: I don’t know, set the scene. Have we been drinking?
-Seventy-four year old McLanahan still works regularly in both film and television, recently earning more favour with Queer audiences as Madame Morrible in the Broadway musical of WICKED, based on the WIZARD OF OZ’s Wicked Witch of the West, and she also played the blind lesbian teacher in STARSHIP TROOPERS.
SOPHIA PETRILLO (Estelle Getty): Pint-sized, ferocious and quick with a put down, Dorothy’s mother Sophia is easily the most acid-tongued mother character since the Queen Xenomorph from ALIENS. Sophia comes to stay with the three younger ladies after suffering a stroke that destroyed the part of her brain responsible for censoring out inappropriate remakes, meaning she could get away with some hilariously nasty one-liners.
SOPHIA: Dorothy, I was there when you needed a Communion dress. I was there when you needed a prom dress. I was there when you needed a wedding dress… Frankly, I’m sick of it, buy your own damn dress!
-Getty is actually two months younger than Bea Arthur, and essayed the role of Sophia under heavy makeup. In the pilot episode, the girls had a live-in Gay chef named Coco, who had many acidic put-downs. After the pilot, Coco was written out, Sophia was made a regular rather than recurring character, and Coco’s lines were adapted for her.
Grab some cheesecake and tune in!
