-Golden Girls Co-producer Marsha Posner Williams recently took part in a Pride LIVE! Hollywood panel celebrating the 40th anniversary of the show where they revealed bts tidbits.
-Casting director Joel Thurm revealed that Brandon Tartikoff, former head of NBC, originally did not want Bea Arthur in the show despite GG creator Susan Harris wanting no one else for the role of Dorothy. Trying to appease Brandon, they brought in Elaine Stritch to audition for the role. Stritch was met with a cold reception from Harris during the casting call ““None of the people associated with Golden Girls wanted her. So this woman had to walk into a freezer of an office and try to make it funny. Stritch asked Susan one thing, it was something like, ‘Is it OK if I change something?’ And Susan said, ‘Yes, only the punctuation.’ There was no love in that room.”
-Estelle Getty would eventually come in and be the first Golden Girl cast for the show even though she was only meant to be reoccurring.
-Cher was meant to play Sophia sons, wife, but never returned to their call.
-While the show was seen as very progressive, it wasnt nearly that bts
-Speaking to the show being seen as progressive and gay friendly, Stan Zimmerman who wrote for the show stated “People have to remember back then, we were told by a representatives to stay in the closet, so nobody knew we were gay, our first day on the set, we noticed Estelle come running towards us, and she’s like … ‘I know. Your secret’s safe with me. You’re one of us.’ I thought she meant Jewish, but she meant gay. She wasn’t gay, but she was probably the first ally ever.”
-Zimmerman went to say that he was telling his co-workers how he had bought some vintage sweaters at a garage sale one day, and they told him to “go home and burn those sweaters because it was probably somebody that died of AIDS. … That was the climate then.’ I know you see all these progressive scenes and you think, ‘Oh, it was one big gay party there,’ but we couldn’t be who we really were.”
-When discussing Bea Arthur and Betty White, for whatever reason the two just never formed a strong bond bts “When that red light was on [and the show was filming], there were no more professional people than those women, but when the red light was off, those two couldn’t warm up to each other if they were cremated together, Bea Arthur used to call me at home and say, ‘I just ran into that c” — meaning White, using the c-word — “at the grocery store. I’m gonna write her a letter,’ and I said, ‘Bea, just get over it for crying out loud. Just get past it.’”
-Williams believes that their differences ultimately came down to their backgrounds as Arthur came from a more theatrical background than White who came from television. Bea was very much about doing her lines and getting the show done as soon as possible whereas Betty would often break character and talk to the audience much to Bea’s disdain.
-The show would have had an 8th season but their contracts were up and Bea Arthur refused to sign on for another “Estelle said, ‘Yes, let’s keep going,’ and Rue said, ‘Yes let’s keep going,’ and Betty said, ‘Yes, let’s keep going.’ And Bea said ‘no fucking way”
