Trivia for
"The Golden Girls" (1985) More at IMDbPro »

• 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.
  
  
• In the pilot episode Blanche's surname is Hollingsworth, not Devereaux (as in subsequent episodes). Blanche's maiden name was Hollingsworth, her married name was Devereaux.
  
  
• When asked by Rose about her marriage in the first episode of the series, Dorothy says she is from Queens. In all the other episodes, Dorothy says she is from Brooklyn.
  
  
• All four actresses won Emmys for their performances.
  
  
• In Episode 8 of Season 1 (The Break In), Rose says that her hometown is Little Falls. In all the episodes after that, she says that her hometown is St. Olaf.
  
  
• The girls consumed over 100 cheesecakes during the show's 7-year run. And Bea Arthur hates cheesecake.
  
  
• It took 45 minutes in make-up for Estelle to be transformed into Sophia.
  
  
• Estelle Getty suffered from stage fright, every Friday night for 26 weeks during the show's taping.
  
  
• Rue McClanahan was found asleep in all sorts of places on the set.
  
  
• The show was a hit in 60 countries and remade in England, Greece and Russia.
  
  
• In 1992, when Bea Arthur left the show, it was retooled by Susan Harris and became "The Golden Palace" (1992).
  
  
• When the original pilot script was submitted to Disney/Touchstone, 'Michael Eisner' liked it but he felt something was missing. He thought a show about three old women living together might scare away younger viewers. He asked Susan Harris to keep working on it. Harris then added the character of Sophia. When she was added, Dorothy became just another woman dealing with her mother and Eisner loved it. After Sophia was added and a pilot was shot, a character named Coco, a gay male servant was cut from the series.
  
  
• In several episodes which showed flashbacks to when Dorothy and Sophia were living in New York during the '40s and '50s, Estelle Getty appears without the wig and makeup.
  
  
• Elaine Stritch was considered for the role of Dorothy.
  
  
• When the actresses trying out for the part of Dorothy, the description of the character was "a Bea Arthur-esque role".
  
  
• Lee Grant was asked to play Dorothy, but she refused to play a woman who was old enough to be a grandmother.
  
  
• Harold Gould played "Arnie Peterson" in "Rose the Prude" (episode # 1.3) as Rose's first boyfriend since her husband, before going on to becoming Rose's regular boyfriend, Miles.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• The idea for the show came from NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff, who was visiting his elderly aunt one day and saw how she and her next-door neighbor, who was also her best friend, interacted with each other. Even though they would argue and bicker a lot, they were still best friends and loved each other. Tartikoff thought that would make a great show, and "The Golden Girls" was born.
  
  
• Estelle Getty was the second youngest of the four women, yet she played the eldest.
  
  
• It was not originally scripted for Blanche to have a Southern accent. Instead, it was Rue McClanahan's idea to do so.
  
  
• The show garnered a total of 57 Emmy nominations.
  
  
• The first episode attracted more than 25 million viewers, beating out fellow-NBC show, "The Cosby Show" (1984), for the number one spot in the ratings that week.
  
  
• Estelle Getty played Sophia on six different shows: "The Golden Girls" (1985), "The Golden Palace" (1992), "Empty Nest" (1988), "Blossom" (1991), "Nurses" (1991) and "Ladies Man" (1999).
  
  
• Betty White played Rose Nylund on four different shows: "Empty Nest" (1988), "Nurses" (1991), "The Golden Girls" (1985) and "The Golden Palace" (1992)
  
  
• In the episode "Wham, bam, thank you Mammy", Blanche is called "Blanche Marie Hollingsworth, but in a later episode she says her full name is "Blanche Elizabeth Deveraux" (B.E.D.)
  
  
• Singer title song: Cynthia Fee.
  
  
• Brandon Tartikoff, then head of NBC, originally conceived the idea for the show during a NBC affiliate meeting promoting new shows for the 1984-1985 television season. Actress's Selma Diamond, of "Night Court" (1984) fame, and actress Doris Roberts, then of "Remington Steele" (1982) fame, performed an opening monologue the proved to be a hit with the audiences. Tartikof apparently began to ponder the idea about doing a sitcom dealing with the trails and tribulations of older woman.
  
  
• Though it is widely believed that Blache's age is never actually revealed, in Season 3, Episode 25 entitled "Mother's Day" (Aired May 7, 1988), it is admitted in a flashback that Blanche was 17 in 1949. That would make her 53 years old when the series began in 1985 and 60 when it ended in 1992.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Dorothy has two children: Kate and Michael. Blanche has six children: Matthew, Janet, Biff, Doug, Skippy and Rebecca. Rose has four children: Adam, Janella, Kirsten and Bridget. Sophia has three children: Dorothy, Phil, and Gloria.
  
  
• In the early 1990s, in a dispute over the network's per-episode licensing fee, Touchstone Television considered taking the still-running show away from NBC and offering it to CBS or ABC.
  
  
• The house's kitchen was recycled from the short-lived Susan Harris series "It Takes Two" (1982), which ran in 1982-83. After the first few episodes in season 1, the polka dot wallpaper of the original kitchen was replaced with a leafy pattern, deemed to be more "tropical" in appearance.
  
  
• Stories abounded that the exclamation point seen on the back of the front door was carved into the wood by Bea Arthur prior to the filming of the first episode. It has been stated by the creators that the story about Arthur carving it was not true, rather that it was just a flaw/mark in the wood and has no significance.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• One of three TV-series to win Emmys for all its main characters. The other two are "All in the Family" (1971) and "Will & Grace" (1998).
  
  
• The three main characters of the show (Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche) all had husbands who were unfaithful to them at one point during their respective marriages.
  
  
• In the opening credits, we see a shot of Blanche in a red jacket drawing her hand inside her sleeve - yet we never see this shot in an episode. In fact, this shot was from a scene in the episode where they are robbed, but was cut from the aired episode. It's use in the opening credits is considered the 'Flying Dutchman' of lost scenes for the series.
  
  
• Rose is the only one of the four main characters to not go through with of almost go through with a wedding ceremony. Blanche was left at the altar in the pilot, Dorthy got married to Blanche's Uncle Lucas in the series finale and Sophia married Max Weinstock in season 4.
  
  

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