QUEEN ARTHUR AND THE ROUND KITCHEN TABLE

This week saw the passing of one of America’s most revered entertainers, Bea Arthur.  An impressive Broadway career led to her being cast to great success as the title character on Norman Lear’s Maude, a role which won Arthur her first Emmy award.  Never expecting to repeat the success, she turned down a script she was sent a number of times, a pilot about four older women living as roommates in Miami.  The eventual series, The Golden

Girls, went on to premiere at #1 in its first season and win Emmy Awards for its entire cast (one of only three shows ever to do so), including one for Arthur.  Its appeal can be attributed to many elements, among them great writing, direction and a strong, fresh spin (chosen family, possibly why it appeals so much to gay audiences) on a tired theme (family sitcoms).  In light of Arthur’s leaving us so soon after Estelle Getty, who played her feisty octogenarian mother, I’ll focus on one particular element that made that show leap off the screen and into our hearts:  when Arthur’s Dorothy and Getty’s Sophia interacted, television struck gold.  Their fighting was zesty and passionate, their devotion and love was palpable, their shared sense of nasty humour irresistible.  In the episode when the girls thought Sophia was having a heart attack, Dorothy made fun of herself for feeling that, if her mother did die, she’d be an orphan; that vulnerability under the sarcasm-laden exterior made this lady with the scary voice and the tender manner relatable to us all.  Twenty four years after its network debut, DVD viewings of The Golden Girls reveal that it has lost none of its hilarity or poignancy; a recent episode marathon that I hosted at my apartment created noise levels my neighbours will never forget.   The Golden Girls, Seasons 1 to 7, are available on DVD from Buena Vista Home Entertainment.