Betty White

Betty has been in the press a lot lately. She recently hosted Saturday Night Live. If you didn’t catch it, check out the clips on hulu or youtube. Here are some pics of Betty in her younger years and for fun some trivia about the show “Golden Girls.” Hope you are having a great day!

–Rue McClanahan was to play Rose and Betty White was to play Blanche (The producers originally wanted Rue to play a version of her naive Vivian Cavender character from “Maude” (1972) and Betty White to play a version of her man-hungry Sue Ann Nivens from “Mary Tyler Moore” (1970).) They switched roles because they didn’t want to be typecast.

–Estelle Getty (Sophia) is 15½ months younger than Bea Arthur (Dorothy), even though Sophia is Dorothy’s mother.

–The girls consumed over 100 cheesecakes during the show’s 7-year run. And Bea Arthur hates cheesecake.

–Rue McClanahan was found asleep in all sorts of places on the set.

–In one episode, Blanche wants to watch the soap opera “Another World” (1964). Rue McClanahan, who played Blanche, made several appearances on that soap opera.

–The writers of the show always tried to give Sophia the raciest lines. They did this because her character had a stroke earlier in life, which made her unable to control the things she was able to say.

–During the first season a real house, in Pacific Palisades, California, was used for the exterior shots of the house. For the rest of the series a replica of the exterior was built on the studio’s lot. This exterior facade was part of the backstage studio tour ride at Disney/MGM studios. This facade – along with the “Empty Nest” (1988) house – was among those destroyed in Summer 2003, as Disney bulldozed the homes of “Residential Street” to make room for its “Lights, Motors, Action!” attraction.

–When the show first aired, the Queen of England loved it so much that she wrote to the four actresses and asked them to perform a live show especially for her. They obliged, and acted out an episode in which the girls visit London on stage in front of the queen and her family.

–Many actors and actresses were invited back to play different characters. Harold Gould played two of Rose’s boyfriends, Arnie and Miles. Bill Dana played Sophia’s brother Angelo and her father. Ellen Albertini Dow played Sophia’s friend Lillian and an unnamed member of an old folks home. Chick Vennera played a prize fighter and TV reporter Enrique Mas. Paul Dooley played Rose’s date Isaac Newton and a neighbor doctor for a semi-failed pilot of what would become “Empty Nest” (1988). Philip Sterling played two different psychiatrists. Sid Melton played Sophia’s late husband and a waiter at a restaurant. George Grizzard played Blanche’s late husband and her brother-in-law. Peter Hansen played two of Dorothy’s boyfriends. Numerous other actors with much smaller parts were asked back twice, sometimes to play non-speaking extras.