The Golden Girls


The Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris that aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992. The series comprises 180 half-hour episodes across seven seasons and features an ensemble cast led by Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty. Set in Miami, Florida, the show centers on four older women who share a home and navigate friendship, aging, and daily life.
The series was produced by Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions in association with Touchstone Television. Paul Junger Witt, Tony Thomas, and Susan Harris served as the original executive producers.
The Golden Girls received critical acclaim during its original run and earned numerous accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series and three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy. Each of the four lead actresses won a Primetime Emmy Award, making it one of only four sitcoms in history where all principal cast members received Emmy recognition. The show ranked among the Nielsen top 10 for six of its seven seasons.
In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Golden Girls number 54 on its list of the 60 Best Series of All Time. In 2014, the Writers Guild of America placed the sitcom at number 69 in their list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time". Terry Tang of the Associated Press reported that the series continues to attract new fans in the 21st century and characterized it as an example of a sitcom that has aged well.

Premise

The show, featuring an ensemble cast, revolves around four older single women sharing a house in Miami while navigating their "golden years" with humor, friendship, and occasional chaos. The owner of the house is a widow named Blanche Devereaux, who was joined by fellow widow Rose Nylund and divorcée Dorothy Zbornak after they both responded to an ad on the bulletin board of a local grocery store, a year before the start of the series. In the pilot episode, the three are joined by Dorothy's 80-year-old widowed mother, Sophia Petrillo, after the retirement home where she lived burned down.
Many episodes of the series followed a similar format or theme. For example, one or more of the women would become involved in some sort of problem, often involving other family members, men, or an ethical dilemma. At some point, they would gather around the kitchen table and discuss the problem, sometimes late at night and often while eating cheesecake, ice cream, or some other dessert. One of the other girls then told a story from her own life, which somehow related to the problem. Some episodes featured flashbacks to previous episodes, flashbacks to events not shown in previous episodes, or to events that occurred before the series began.

Finale

The Golden Girls came to an end when Bea Arthur chose to leave the series. In the hour-long series finale, which aired in May 1992, Dorothy meets and marries Blanche's uncle, Lucas and moves to Hollingsworth Manor in Atlanta. Sophia is to join her, but in the end, she stays behind with the other women in Miami. This led into the spin-off series The Golden Palace.
The series finale of The Golden Girls was watched by 27.2 million viewers. As of 2016, it was the 17th-most watched television finale.

Episodes

Cast and characters

Main

  • Beatrice Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak, a substitute teacher born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Sicilian immigrants Sophia and Salvadore "Sal" Petrillo. Dorothy became pregnant while still in high school, resulting in a marriage to Stanley "Stan" Zbornak to legitimize the baby. Stan and Dorothy divorced after 38 years when Stan left the marriage for a young flight attendant. The marriage produced two children, Kate and Michael. In the series' final episode, Dorothy marries Blanche's uncle, Lucas Hollingsworth, and relocates to Atlanta. In season one, episode seven, Dorothy is stated to be 55. She is practical, sarcastic, short-tempered, a follower of current events, and is often seen as the voice of reason.
  • Betty White as Rose Nylund, a Norwegian American, from the small farming town of St. Olaf, Minnesota. Often naive and known for her humorously peculiar stories of life growing up in her hometown, Rose was happily married to Charlie Nylund, with whom she had five children: daughters Kirsten, Bridget, and Gunilla, and sons Adam and Charlie Jr. Upon her husband's death, she moved to Miami. She eventually finds work at a grief counseling center, but later switches careers and becomes assistant to a consumer reporter, Enrique Mas, at a local TV station. In later seasons, Rose becomes romantically involved with college professor Miles Webber. During season six, Miles is revealed to have been in the Witness Protection Program. Their relationship continues throughout the series and briefly into the sequel series, The Golden Palace. Rose is sweet, kind, and very competitive. Many of the jokes about Rose focus on her perceived lack of intelligence.
  • Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux, a Southern belle, employed at an art museum. Born into a wealthy family, Blanche grew up on a plantation outside of Atlanta, Georgia, prior to her relocation to Miami, where she lived with her husband, George, until his death. Their marriage produced five children: daughters Janet and Rebecca, and sons Doug, Biff, and Matthew. A widow, Blanche is portrayed as self-absorbed and man-hungry, although she still mourns her husband. She has two sisters, Virginia and Charmaine, and a younger brother, Clayton. Another brother, Tad, is seen in the spin-off series. Many of the jokes about Blanche focus on her promiscuity.
  • Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy's mother; born in Sicily, Sophia moved to New York after fleeing an arranged marriage to Guido Spirelli. She married Salvadore "Sal" Petrillo, with whom she had three children: Dorothy, Gloria, and Phil, a cross-dresser who later dies of a heart attack. Initially a resident of the Shady Pines retirement home, she moved in with Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy following a fire at the institution. Sophia is portrayed as a quick-witted straight talker and a great cook. Despite portraying Dorothy's elderly mother, in reality, Getty was a year younger than Arthur.

    Recurring

  • Herb Edelman as Stanley "Stan" Zbornak, Dorothy's cheating, freeloading ex-husband, who left her to marry a young flight attendant, Chrissy, who later left him. Stan married another woman, Catherine, in season four, but they divorced off-screen in season five. Stanley worked as an unsuccessful novelty item salesman until he became a successful entrepreneur by inventing the "Zbornie", which was a utensil used to open baked potatoes. Many of Stan's plot lines were centered around the fact that Dorothy was still bitter about their divorce and the way he left her. Attempts at reconciliation were made by both Stan and Dorothy throughout the series, particularly episode 12 of season one and episodes 16 and 17 of season six. They made peace in the series finale when Stan accepted Dorothy's decision to marry Lucas Hollingsworth.
  • Harold Gould as Miles Webber, Rose's professor boyfriend from season five onwards. In season six, Miles reveals he is in the witness protection program and was a bookkeeper for a mobster. Gould also guest-starred once in the first season as Arnie Peterson, Rose's first serious boyfriend after her husband Charlie's death.
  • Sid Melton as Salvadore "Sal" Petrillo, Sophia's late husband, is usually seen in dreams or flashback sequences. Melton also appears as Don the Fool, a waiter at a medieval-themed restaurant in season six.
  • Shawn Schepps and Debra Engle as Blanche's daughter, Rebecca Devereaux. She was an overweight former model in an emotionally abusive relationship, but she later slimmed down and had a baby girl named Aurora by artificial insemination.
  • Monte Markham and Sheree North as Blanche's siblings Clayton Hollingsworth and Virginia Hollingsworth Warren. Virginia and Blanche were estranged from each other for a long time, until they reconciled in season one. They became estranged again in season five after their father's funeral. Clayton is a closeted gay man who had trouble coming out to Blanche. She eventually accepted Clayton and his new boyfriend when the two got married.
  • Bill Dana and Nancy Walker portrayed Sophia's siblings Angelo and Angela. Bill Dana appears in seven episodes, while he also played Sophia's father in a fourth season episode. Nancy Walker starred in two episodes in season two.
  • Doris Belack and Dena Dietrich as Gloria Petrillo-Harker, Dorothy's younger sister. She is married to a wealthy man in California. In a two-part episode in Season 7, she has lost all of her money and becomes romantically involved with Stan, but she eventually comes to think of him as a yutz and breaks up with him.
  • Scott Jacoby is Dorothy's traveling musician son Michael Zbornak; in season three, he married Lorraine Wagner, an older black woman who sang with his band, but by season five, they are divorced.
  • Lynnie Greene is a younger Dorothy in flashbacks.
  • Lisa Jane Persky and Deena Freeman portrayed Dorothy's daughter, Kate Zbornak-Griffiths. She was an interior decorator in New York, married to Dennis Griffiths, a podiatrist.

    Production

Creation

Ideas for a comedy series about older women emerged during the filming of a television special at NBC Studios in Burbank, California, in August 1984. Produced to introduce the network's 1984–85 season schedule, two actresses appearing on NBC shows, Selma Diamond of Night Court and Doris Roberts of Remington Steele, appeared in a skit promoting the upcoming show Miami Vice as Miami Nice, a parody about old people living in Miami. NBC senior vice president Warren Littlefield was among the executive producers in the audience who were amused by their performance, and he envisioned a series based on the geriatric humor the two were portraying.
Shortly afterward, he met with producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas, who were pitching a show about a female lawyer. Though Littlefield nixed their idea, he asked if they would be interested in delivering a pilot script for Miami Nice, instead. Their regular writer declined, so Witt asked his wife, Susan Harris, who had been semiretired since the conclusion of their ABC series Soap. She found the concept interesting, as "it was a demographic that had never been addressed," and she soon began work on it. Though her vision of a sitcom about women in their 60s differed from NBC's request for a comedy about women around 40 years old, Littlefield was impressed when he received her pilot script and subsequently approved production of it. The Cosby Show director Jay Sandrich, who had previously worked with Harris, Witt, and Thomas on Soap, agreed to direct the pilot episode.
The pilot included a gay house attendant, Coco, who lived with the girls. Levin had been suggested by then-NBC president Brandon Tartikoff based on Levin's groundbreaking portrayal of a recurring gay character, Eddie Gregg, on NBC's Emmy-winning drama Hill Street Blues. After the pilot, the character of Coco was eliminated from the series.
The Walt Disney Company, NBC Studios and the creators were named in a federal copyright infringement suit filed by Nancy Bretzfield claiming the show was based on a script rejected by NBC in 1980. The suit was later settled.
According to the actor Mark Feuerstein, Susan Harris has stated that she intended The Golden Girls to be a show about four Jewish women. Feuerstein said that "She wrote it about four old Jewish women living in Florida. They shot a pilot, it was great and everyone was excited, but the network told her 'Rewrite it. Nobody is interested in watching four old Jewish women.