Series Description

The Golden Girls TV show was a 30 minute situation comedy series on NBC set in Miami Beach, Florida where four women lived together. They were best friends but as with any group of people sharing a place to live, they also got on each other's nerves. Many middle-aged issues were dealt with such as dating, losing a spouse and dealing with ex-spouses.

Golden Girls Cast

Beatrice "Bea" Arthur .... Dorothy Zbornak
Rue McClanahan .... Blanche Devereaux
Betty White .... Rose Nylund
Estelle Getty .... Sophia Petrillo
Harold Goul .... Miles Webber
Herbert Edelman .... Stanley Zbornak

Golden Girls Theme Song

Title: "Thank You for Being a Friend"

By: "Andrew Gold"

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true your a pal and a confidant.

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you ever knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say thank you for being a friend.

Golden Girls Trivia:

The Golden Girls was so popular that it "spun-off" two other series titled, "Empty Nest" and "The Golden Palace".

The Golden Girls was in the top 10 in the Nielsen ratings for each of its seven seasons! It was seen by audiences in 60 countries around the world!

Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty guest-starred on "Blossom" and "Empty Nest" in their Golden Girls/Golden Palace roles as Rose, Blanche, and Sophia respectively. Estelle Getty also appeared as Sophia on the series, "Nurses (1991)".

Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney/Touchstone who produced the Golden Girls, was not totally sold on the original pilot script. He wondered how big the audience was for a series about three old ladies living together. When the character Sophia was added, he was sold! Eisner felt that a daughter dealing with her mom would appeal to a wider audience and he was right!

The pilot script also included a gay male who cooked, cleaned, etc. for the Golden Girls but that role was deleted when Sophia was added.

Estelle Getty played Beatrice Arthur's mother on The Golden Girls but, in real-life, Arthur is seventy-three days older than Getty!

Betty White was originally hired to play the role of Blanche on The Golden Girls and Rue McClanahan was hired to play the role of Rose. Betty White was best known at that time for her role as the extremely dynamic "Sue Ann Nivens" on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show". Rue was best known from her role as the timid and subdued "Vivian" on the series "Maude". Both Betty and Rue were concerned about becoming typecast and NBC was afraid that audiences might confuse their characters with their former ones so they switched roles to play characters that were nearly exact opposites from their former ones.

Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White, and Estelle Getty all won Emmy Awards for their roles on The Golden Girls!