Beatrice Arthur

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Beatrice Arthur
Arthur at the 1987 Emmy Awards
Born	Bernice Frankel May 13, 1922 (1922-05-13) (age 86) New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1947-present
Spouse(s)	Robert Alan Aurthur Gene Saks (1950-1978)
Awards won Emmy Awards Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series 1977 Maude 1988 The Golden Girls Tony Awards Best Featured Actress in a Musical 1966 Mame

Beatrice “Bea” Arthur (born May 13, 1922) is an American comedian, actress and singer. In an ongoing career spanning six decades, Arthur has achieved success as the title character, Maude Findlay, on the 1970s sitcom Maude, and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls.

Biography

Early life

Arthur was born Bernice Frankel to Philip and Rebecca Frankel in New York City on May 13, 1922^[1] Her family soon moved to Maryland where her parents operated a women's clothing shop. She attended the now-defunct Blackstone College in Blackstone, Virginia where she was active in drama productions.

Theater

Arthur began her acting career as a member of an off Broadway theater group at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in the late 1940s. On stage, her roles included "Lucy Brown" in the 1954 off-broadway premiere of Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, "Yente the Matchmaker" in the 1964 premiere of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, and a 1966 Tony Award-winning portrayal of "Vera Charles" to Angela Lansbury's Mame. She reprised the role in the 1974 film version opposite Lucille Ball. Some of the film's viewers mistook her for a drag queen, but her performance was generally well received by critics. In 1981, she appeared in Woody Allen's The Floating Lightbulb.^[2]

Television

In 1972, Arthur was cast as the title character in the television series Maude. She played Maude Findlay, an outspoken liberal living in the affluent community of Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, with her husband, Walter (Bill Macy) and divorced daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau). The show was a spin-off from All in the Family, on which Arthur had appeared a couple of times in the same role, playing Edith Bunker's (Jean Stapleton)'s cousin, a feminist, and antithesis to the bigoted, conservative Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), who described Maude as a "New Deal fanatic." Her role garnered several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, including her Emmy win in 1977 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

In 1978, she costarred in the much derided The Star Wars Holiday Special, in which she had a song and dance routine, where the Star Wars character Greedo was her dance partner.

After appearing in the short-lived 1983 sitcom Amanda's (an unsuccessful US version of the British hit series Fawlty Towers), Arthur was cast in the hit sitcom The Golden Girls in 1985, in which she played Dorothy Zbornak, a divorced substitute teacher living in a Miami, Florida house owned by Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan). Her other roommates included widow Rose Nylund (Betty White) and Dorothy's Sicilian mother, Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty). Getty was actually a year younger than Arthur in real life, and was heavily made up to look significantly older. Dorothy had a caustic sense of humor and was prone to making witty and sarcastic wisecracks. The series was a huge hit, remaining a top ten ratings fixture for six seasons. Her performance led to several Emmy nominations over the course of the series and an Emmy win in 1988. Arthur decided to leave the show after seven years and in 1992, the show was moved from NBC to CBS and retooled as The Golden Palace in which the other three actresses reprised their roles. Arthur made a guest appearance in a two-part episode, but the show only lasted for one season before it was cancelled.

Later life

Arthur accepting the TV Land Award for Popular Culture on behalf of The Golden Girls

After Arthur left The Golden Girls, she made several guest appearances on television shows and even organized and toured with her one-woman show. She made a guest appearance on American cartoon Futurama, in the Emmy-nominated episode "Amazon Women in the Mood" as the voice of the Femputer who ruled the giant Amazonian women. She appeared in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle as Dewey's babysitter who possessed an unfortunate harmony with Dewey's likes and dislikes. She was nominated for a guest-star Emmy for her performance. She also showed up unexpectedly as Larry David's mother on Curb Your Enthusiasm. In 2005, she participated in the Comedy Central roast of Pamela Anderson, delivering an unforgettable deadpan, highly cynical reading of excerpts from Pamela's book "Star: The Novel," most notably the part that describes receiving sodomy-related advice.

In 2002, she made a triumphant return to Broadway starring in Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends, a collection of stories and songs (with musician Billy Goldenberg) based on her life and long career. The show was nominated for a Tony award for Best Special Theatrical Event, but lost to Elaine Stritch At Liberty.

Arthur was inducted into Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 2008.^[3] On June 8, 2008, The Golden Girls was awarded the 'Pop Culture' award at the Sixth Annual TV Land Awards. Bea accepted the award with co-stars Rue McClanahan and Betty White.^[4]

Personal life

Arthur was married twice, first to Robert Alan Aurthur, a screenwriter, TV & film producer and director, whose surname she took and kept though with a modified spelling, and second to director Gene Saks from 1950-1978 with whom she adopted two sons, Matthew (born 14 July 1961), an actor and Daniel (born 8 May 1964), a set designer.

She primarily lives in the Greater Los Angeles Area and has sublet her apartment on Central Park West in New York City and her country home in Bedford, New York. She has one living sister who lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Television credits

Theatre performances

Filmography

• That Kind of Woman (1959)
• Lovers and Other Strangers (1970)
• Mame (1974)
• History of the World: Part I (1981) (cameo)
• My First Love (1988)
• For Better or For Worse (1996)
• Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997) (cameo)
• Enemies of Laughter (2000)
• Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
• Broadway: Beyond The Golden Age (2008) (documentary)

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Beatrice Arthur

External links

• Beatrice Arthur at the Internet Broadway Database
• Beatrice Arthur at the Internet Movie Database
• Beatrice Arthur at TV.com
• Bea Arthur Interview with Archive of American Televison^{[dead link]}