The Golden Girls broke boundaries with its main cast of older women, but it originally broke even more with the lost fifth member of the hit sitcom.
The Golden Girls is still known today as one of the most progressive sitcoms ever made. 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. Before it was just “the Golden Girls,” however, there was a Golden Boy who lived with them.
The Golden Girls’ pilot episode featured a fifth housemate. Coco was the original fourth main character — with Sophia being recurring instead. But over the course of the original pilot being made and NBC picking up the show to series, the ensemble changed. Coco’s role diminished as the pilot was cut down, resulting in him only appearing in a few scenes with minimal dialogue.
Updated April 7th, 2024 by David Giatras:As The Golden Girls continues to be popular generation after generation thanks to streaming and syndication, fans of the series may not have known about Coco, who originally planned to be the fifth housemate of the cast. However, several cuts and decisions by the network ultimately came at a cost for Coco but set The Golden Girls on the path to being one of television’s greatest shows.
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Who Was Coco, The Golden Girls’ Butler?
Blanche and Coco watch on in The Golden Girls
Golden Girls main characters stand next to each other in front of a window
The Golden Girls’ ages were never revealed on screen during the show. However, with some detective work, fans of the NBC sitcom can figure them out.
Coco was the openly gay fifth housemate of the Golden Girls in the show’s original pilot. Charles Levin, who had played an LGBTQ character in the drama Hill Street Blues, was picked for the role. He even took part in promotional activities with the rest of the main cast. His character was meant to expand the show’s representation even further. Executive producer Warren Littlefield stated in a New York Times interview that NBC “…propelled The Golden Girls because we knew there would be nothing like it on the air,” referring to the cast consisting of older women — an age group rarely represented properly on television at the time. He wanted to expand on that idea by putting an LGBTQ character in the ensemble as well. That was something Golden Girls creator and writer Susan Harris was happy to do.
However, Coco’s role in the Golden Girls household was more than just “the fifth roommate.” He served as the butler for the home, serving drinks and food throughout the pilot. Littlefield pitched that the women of the house wanted help cleaning and cooking after years of cleaning up after their own kids. Coco’s relationship with his housemates was personal as well — as evidenced by him actively taking part in Blanche’s failed wedding. Coco also served as another source of wit and humor for the series. Rose said their only collateral was a “gay cook” when she and Dorothy talked about possibly moving out of the house. Coco’s limited dialogue shows him to be sharp-witted like Dorothy, both of them making jokes at Rose’s expense when she talks about her deceased husband. However, only Bea Arthur’s Dorothy made it to Season 7.
Why Coco Didn’t Appear After the Golden Girls Pilot
Dorothy, Rose and Coco look confused in Golden Girls
One of the Golden Girls from the popular 1980s NBC sitcom found herself hitched in the most unexpected way in the 1992 series finale.
Unfortunately for Coco, his wit and domestic skills couldn’t save him from network television retooling. The original cut of the pilot was five minutes too long and Coco’s material was first to get the axe as his scenes had little to do with the overall plot. Due to the dynamic of the main cast, as well as the talent of breakout star Estelle Getty, led NBC to correctly conclude that the four women could carry the show on their own. Sophia was bumped from a recurring character to a series regular while Coco left to go serve drinks elsewhere. In the end, The Golden Girls went on to feature guest LGBTQ+ characters, as well as tackle major topics like the AIDS crisis. Although its main LGBTQ+ character didn’t make it past the pilot, the show was still one of the earliest positive representations of LGBTQIA+ people on TV.
As great as Coco was — and he was very funny, and I love that there was a gay character — it wasn’t really needed, and they were smart to let that go.
One of The Golden Girls’ writers, Stan Zimmerman, commented on the axing of Coco in 2024. Zimmerman said
while he loved the character of Coco, the show realized that Coco was not really needed on the show. It was one of those situations where it was a tough call to make, but the correct one. Looking back, Zimmerman also wishes that they could have brought Coco back in a future episode or in some capacity, but he was told by the network to simply let it go. He also speculated what happened to Coco after his only episode appearance, stating that, “…maybe he fell in love, went somewhere. Maybe he opened a B&B in Key West. I don’t know. There’s so many possibilities.” So unfortunately for Coco, his one-off appearance and subsequent disappearance goes down as a what if? in the history of sitcoms, which applies to many more characters than one would think. Despite the disappointment of Coco never appearing again, the harsh truth of the matter is that The Golden Girls may not have become what it was if Coco had stayed on.
Why Coco Getting Cut Was Best For The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls is one of television’s greatest sitcoms and is still as popular as ever to this day. Thanks to syndication, and more importantly, streaming, the show has gained many viewers spanning generations. As mentioned before, part of the reason that Coco was cut after the pilot was due to Estelle Getty becoming a regular member of the cast rather than a guest or recurring character. If Getty remained a recurring character, The Golden Girls would have been missing a very important piece of its ensemble. The show has consistently been hailed for having one of the strongest casts in the history of television and Getty was a big part of that. Sophia Petrillo was a hit with viewers and became a fan-favorite character during the show’s run, with Getty herself winning a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for her performance. Coco’s disappearance after restructuring the show is not the first time it has happened to a television show, and it certainly will not be the last by a long shot.
Over the years, several shows have changed drastically after their pilot episode. In fact, sometimes shows even film multiple pilots to get the show right. Some examples include Three’s Company, Family Guy, The Big Bang Theory, The Office, 30 Rock and Game of Thrones. If these shows did not make the necessary changes they needed to make to be successful, chances are they would not be as popular or beloved as they ended up being. Sometimes, the hardest choices to make are the ones that, deep down, the creative team knows are right for the future of a show. A small victory for the cutting of Coco after the pilot is most certainly that the show thrived due to the fantastic chemistry of its main cast, and unfortunately, there was no room for Coco. The fact that viewers are still talking about Coco nearly 40 years after the show premiered is a testament to its fan base and how passionate they are about the show. And as a result, the legend of Coco will live on.
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