The Golden Girls

The Golden Girls was a popular television sitcom that originally aired Saturday nights on the NBC network from September 14, 1985 to September 7, 1992. It can now be seen in syndication frequently on the Lifetime cable network in the United States, Prime in Canada and Living TV in the UK.

Characters

The show starred Bea Arthur as the sarcastic Dorothy Zbornak (early casting ideas included Elaine Stritch as Dorothy); Betty White as dimwit Rose Nylund; Rue McClanahan as sexpot Blanche Devereaux; and Estelle Getty as the witty Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy's mother (although Getty is actually two months younger than Arthur so was heavily made up to seem much older). In the early days of casting, Rue McClanahan auditioned for the role of Rose, while Betty White auditioned for the role of Blanche. All these actresses won Emmy Awards for the show, the first time all the principal characters in an ensemble series won Emmy Awards for themselves.

Related Topics:
Bea Arthur - Dorothy Zbornak - Elaine Stritch - Betty White - Rose Nylund - Rue McClanahan - Blanche Devereaux - Estelle Getty - Sophia Petrillo - Emmy Awards

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Dorothy

Dorothy is an Italian girl raised in New York City by her mother Sophia and her father Sal. In high school, Stanley Zbornak got her pregnant and a wedding took place to give the baby a name. They were married for 38 years and Stan cheated on her numerous times before Stan left her for a flight attendant named Chrissy, who he met on the way to a business conference in Hawaii. After moving to Miami, Dorothy continued working as a substitute teacher. Dorothy has two children, Michael and Kate, and a grandchild (born to Michael). The grandchild is never shown on the series.

Related Topics:
New York City - Give the baby a name - Hawaii

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Rose

Rose Nylund (nee Lindstrom) is from the small farming town of St. Olaf, Minnesota and was married for many years to Charlie Nylund, until he died of a heart attack while having sex with her. After living alone for a while, she moved to Miami and found work at a grief counseling center. During the middle of the show's run, her husband's pension is cut off, and she is not able to make enough money to support herself at the counseling center, so she takes a job as a consumer reporter's assistant for a local television station. She has three daughters, Kirsten, Bridget, and Jeanella, and a son, Adam. The latter two are mentioned, but never seen on the show. She has a granddaughter, Charlie, who appears only once. Other family members who have appeared are her free-spirited mother, Alma (whom Rose nearly smothered with her over-protectiveness), her sister Lily (who is blind), and another sister, Holly (whom Rose cannot stand). Given that Rose has stated that her parents loved 'all nine of us equally', there is a noticeable lack of visiting siblings during the course of the show's run.

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Blanche

Blanche Devereaux (nee Hollingsworth) is a Southern belle, who grew up on a plantation outside of Atlanta, Georgia and was always the apple of her father's eye, even though she tries to spin it the other way many other times. She has many sibling rivalries with her sisters Charmaine and Virginia. She also faces difficulty coming to terms with her brother Clayton's homosexuality. Throughout most of the series, Blanche is portrayed as man-hungry. At the beginnng of the series, the house the girls share belongs to her. However, later in the series, she sells equal shares of the house to Dorothy, Rose and Sophia, so one of them is not forced to move out due to local ordinances on the number of people Blanche can rent to. Her husband George died when a drunk driver hit him head-on. At his funeral, she picked up a man, as Rose said, because "she couldn't live without a man." Very vain, she always tries to act younger than she is (the youngest of the group, estimated to be in her fifties, even had her true date of birth removed from vital records "by order of the Governor"). She works as an art gallery employee. Judging from her brief mentions of them on the show, it appears she has six children; two daughters, Rebecca and Janet, both of whom appear on the show, and four sons, Matthew (a CPA), Biff, Doug, and Skippy (who has athsma) who are mentioned, but never seen on the series.

Related Topics:
Southern belle - Georgia - Homosexuality - CPA

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A seventh Devereaux child, David, was discovered when the young man turned up at the house, looking for George. This led Blanche to struggle with the fact that her husband, whom she was devoted to, was unfaithful during their marriage.

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Sophia

Sophia, Dorothy's mother, was born in Sicily and moved to New York City, after she annulled her first (arranged) marriage to Guido Spirelli (she was also briefly engaged to a young man from her village, Augustine Bagatelli, as a teenager). Then, she married Sal Petrillo and had three children with him, Dorothy, Phil (who sometimes cross-dressed), and Gloria (who married rich). She was put away in a nursing home by Dorothy and comes to live with the girls when her retirement home, Shady Pines, burns to the ground. Sophia does not have many good things to say about the home, and alludes to poor treatment by the staff many times throughout the series' run, though at least once, she compliments their services. She marries Max Weinstock, Sal's old busines partner, in Miami, but later she separates from him.

Related Topics:
Sicily - New York City

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Members of Sophia's family who have appeared on the program: her sister Angela (played by Nancy Walker), her brother Angelo, her daughter Gloria, and, in flashbacks, her husband Sal, and her mother (played by Bea Arthur).

Related Topics:
Nancy Walker - Bea Arthur

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