The stars’ series ran for seven seasons from 1985 to 1992, earning each woman an Emmy Award and the hearts of viewers
With Betty White’s passing on Dec. 31 at the age of 99, all four of TV’s beloved The Golden Girls — White, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty — are seemingly now together at that Miami house in the sky.
The stars’ series ran for seven seasons from 1985 to 1992, earning each woman an Emmy Award and the hearts of viewers.
With the smash sitcom top of mind right now, here are seven surprising secrets from the set that celebrated Miami’s most adored (fictional) senior citizens.
The classic could have been cast differently
Originally, White was offered the role of sexy Southern belle Blanche Devereaux, which ultimately went to McClanahan. In 2010, White opened up about the pivot in an interview with the Associated Press.
THE GOLDEN GIRLS
The cast of ‘The Golden Girls’.
“You get a lot of scripts mailed to you and not too many of them are good, but when this one came along it just hit the spot and they sent it to each of us,” White said of the special feeling she had about The Golden Girls. “They sent it to me with the idea of me doing Blanche. Jay Sandrich, who was our director for most of the Mary Tyler Moore shows, said, ‘If Betty plays another nymphomaniac they are going to think it is Sue Ann Nivens all over again.’ He said, ‘Why don’t we switch them?’ ”
Years before, Broadway legend Elaine Stritch joked about botching her The Golden Girls audition for Dorothy Zbornak (ultimately Arthur’s role) in a 2002 standup special, Variety reported at the time.
“I blew it. I didn’t get the job. I blew a 35, 40, or maybe even 50 (if they wanted me badly enough) thousand dollars per episode,” Stritch said. “I blew it. A multi-billion -, zillion-dollar, international, syndicated residual-grabbing, Bonferroni, smasherooni, television situation comedy entitled The Golden Girls.”
Arthur and White didn’t always see eye-to-eye
Despite their chemistry onscreen, Arthur and White reportedly approached their craft differently, which drove somewhat of a wedge between them. White admitted in a 2011 interview with Joy Behar that “Bea was not that fond of me … I don’t know what I ever did, but she was not that thrilled with me. But I loved Bea.”
In 2016, Arthur’s son Matthew Saks told The Hollywood Reporter that White’s lighthearted style sometimes rubbed his mom the wrong way.
Golden Girls
“When they shot the sitcom, sometimes they had to stop. My mom would stay concentrated, maybe stay backstage, and stand in her place there. And sometimes Betty would go out and smile and chat with the audience and go and make friends with the audience,” Saks said. “Which is a nice thing — a lot of them have come from all over the country and are fans. I think my mom didn’t dig that. It’s more about being focused or conserving your energy.”
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Despite their differences, Saks stressed there was no bad blood between the women — onscreen or off.
“They were friends. At one point they lived close enough that they would drive each other to work,” he told THR.
The foursome performed for the Queen Mother
The Golden Girls once took their show on the road for a royal, loyal superfan! In a Reddit AMA in 2014, White recounted the “very exciting” experience she and her costars shared, performing the NBC hit live for Queen Elizabeth, a.k.a. the Queen Mother, in 1988.
Betty White Dies: The Golden Girls and Mary Tyler Moore Show Star Was 99
“The Queen was lovely. We were told not to address her unless we were addressed,” White wrote, per the read. “She was up in a box and she came down on stage after with Princess Anne.”
The cameos were just as illustrious
The sitcom’s 180 episodes packed a punch with a star-studded slew of celebrity guest cameos. George Clooney, Alex Trebek, Debbie Reynolds, Sonny Bono, Dick Van Dyke, Rita Moreno, Quentin Tarantino, Burt Reynolds and more graced The Golden Girls through the years, per IMDb. Even Mario Lopez and Jenny Lewis appeared as kids!
When it came to the fab foursome’s sweet treat of choice, Arthur was allegedly a tough cheese! According to IMDb, the actress “hated” the creamy sweet, but chewed through the 100 cheesecakes the stars were served on set through the years.
Getty was one year younger than Arthur, her onscreen daughter
Though gregarious Getty played Sophia Petrillo, the elderly mother of Arthur’s Zbornak, in real life, she was one year younger than her onscreen offspring. To make the age gap work, the glam team transformed Getty with heavy makeup and a wig, IMDb reported.
The ladies’ famous home wasn’t actually in Miami
There’s no place like home – but the façade of the girls’ home was never in Florida! Instead, the establishing exterior shot for the fictional home of Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia was of a private residence in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood. In August 2020, the property sold for $4,000,620 — $1 million over its initial asking price, PEOPLE confirmed at the time.
