T-shirts, live reenactments, ice-cream tributes, and of course, reruns: No matter which way you slice it, “The Golden Girls” are still a platinum hit.
It was an unlikely concept — four older, sassy ladies living together in Florida. But in 1984, when NBC presented its fall lineup to the press, a “Miami Nice” skit with Doris Roberts and Selma Diamond bantering on stage and ogling Don Johnson drew big laughs and surprising buzz. The network decided to make it into a show.
When the renamed “Golden Girls” premiered the next year, it was a ratings smash, pulling in more than 22 million viewers a week over its seven seasons.
It almost didn’t star Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan and Betty White, however, writes Jim Colucci, whose new book “Golden Girls Forever” is an exhaustively detailed look at every episode.
Known for playing sexpot Sue Ann Nivens on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” White was surprised to be tapped for the role of innocent, literal Minnesotan native Rose Nylund, while McClanahan, who rose to fame “mousy” Aunt Fran on “Mama’s Family” and neighbor Vivian Harmon on “Maude” was thrilled to be handed the part of sexy Blanche Devereaux.
Even though famed TV writer Susan Harris had created the character of no-nonsense, divorced substitute teacher Dorothy Zbornak specifically for Arthur, the Broadway and television star wasn’t eager about “The Golden Girls,” Colucci says.
“Rue, I have no interest in playing Maude and Vivian meet Sue Ann Nivens,” she told McClanahan.
When her longtime friend told her who was playing who, Arthur replied, “Now that is very interesting,” and the rest is history.
Getty, a housewife from Bayside, Queens, got her start in theater in Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy,” and was the only one of the four without a television background. But she was so good as Dorothy’s wisecracking mom Sophia Petrillo, producers elevated the role from recurring to full-time.
In prepping for her audition, Getty shopped around in Los Angeles’ Fairfax District for props, which is where she found Sophia’s ever-present straw purse, used for the show’s entire run.
Though Getty had audiences rolling with laughter, crippling stage fright left her scribbling her lines everywhere she could on the set: inside cabinets, on the kitchen tablecloths and even the salt-and-pepper shakers, Colucci says.
Then there was the episode with the banana, recalled then-newbie production coordinator Nina Feinberg Wass, whose introduction to the actress involved an odd negotiation.
“Should Estelle really be staring at a banana? Is that odd?” writer and producer Mort Nathan asked Wass while they watched rehearsal from a control booth. “Oh my God, she’s written her lines on the fruit.”
Dispatched to the set, Wass introduced herself to Getty: “Hello, Estelle. I’m Nina, and I need to move your banana.”
“You may not move my banana!” said Getty, who eventually acquiesced.
The show was daring in its day, tackling sex, homelessness, homosexuality and cross-dressing.
The show’s popularity made it easy to land guest stars like Bob Hope, who asked that he be paid in “10 Ronald Reagan jokes” for his upcoming Bob Hope Desert Classic golf tournament.
Other guests were just getting by, like George Clooney, whose agent asked for a role “so he can maintain his medical insurance.”
And here’s a bit of trivia: Quentin Tarantino’s first paid acting job was as an Elvis impersonator on the show.
The actresses came to embody the roles they played, even off-screen.
In “Room Seven,” where McClanahan’s Blanche handcuffs herself to a radiator to prevent her grandmother’s home from being demolished, the show was about to break for lunch when the prop master’s key for the handcuffs broke — with the actress still chained to the heavy radiator.
As the lights went down on the set and the actress panicked, director Peter Beyt, who describes himself at the time as “really shy and closeted,” rescued her with the handcuff key he just happened to keep on him.
As the rest of the crew teased him, a protective Rue stepped in with a Blanche-like declaration.
“Now, you stop that right now! There is nothing wrong with this boy having a healthy interest in sex!”
It’s too bad Colucci didn’t include the fun tales spilled by several “Golden Girls” writers in early March to Frontiers Media.
Mort Nathan and Winifred Hervey remembered how Bea Arthur didn’t hesitate to call information and find out the number of a certain Mrs. Betty Johnson, of Sioux City,Iowa, who slammed Arthur’s character as uninteresting in TV Guide.
The woman sputtered an apology. “That’s what I thought,” Arthur said. “OK, that’s better.”
Then there was the day Betty White, in her 60s, was hooked up to a harness and swung in the air upside-down for a half-hour without a peep before someone thought to give her a rest.
“I ask, ‘Betty, would you like a break?’ Nathan told Frontiers. “And she screams down, ‘That would be nice, darling!’ . . . She would have hung there until she passed out before she’d break the rhythm of the show.”