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Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

post #1 of 11
7/22/08 at 10:49am
Thread Starter 
ESTELLE GETTY DEAD AT 84
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted: 1:30 pm
July 22, 2008

Actress Estelle Getty has died.

Her son, Carl Gettleman, says the co-star of the TV show "The Golden Girls" died early Tuesday at home in Los Angeles. Gettleman says she suffered from advanced dementia.

The diminutive actress spent 40 years struggling for success before landing the role of a lifetime in 1985, playing the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on "The Golden Girls."

I can't say I was a big fan of "The Golden Girls" but I know some people here were. To those who were, sorry for the news.
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post #2 of 11
7/22/08 at 11:18am

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

Just watched her last night in Mannequin.

RIP.
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post #3 of 11
7/22/08 at 2:17pm

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

Sophia, one of the great comic characters of all time, had tons of great lines, but this comeback was one of my favorites:

Miles Webber: Rose, I've never met anyone quite like you.
Sophia: Check the corn field on Hee-Haw.

It's a shame Estelle was fighting dementia over the past several years and couldn't enjoy the resurgence in popularity of The Golden Girls.

Farewell, Estelle! Hopefully the clouds have lifted wherever you are and you're tossing off zingers left and right, once again as sharp as Sophia.
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post #4 of 11
7/22/08 at 4:34pm

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

I knew this day would come, yet it still breaks my heart.

Thank you for being a friend.
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post #5 of 11
7/23/08 at 1:29pm

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

I always wondered how many Golden Girls fans realized Estelle was about the same age as her co-stars although she played the mother of one of them.
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post #6 of 11
7/24/08 at 10:59am

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

Some memorable Sophia quotes from IMdb:

Sophia: Make way for the victors.
Rose: You won the big game?
Sophia: No, Rose. We lost and we all changed our names to Victor.

Rose: Heaven is full of cows, chickens, horses and pigs...
Sophia: I hope Heaven has *boots*!

Blanche: [referring to her brother and his lover visiting] My goodness, what would the neighbors think if they saw two men lying in my bed?
Sophia: They'd think it's Tuesday!

Rose: Sophia, why are you in such a bad mood?
Sophia: Excuse me Rose, but I haven't had sex in fifteen years and its starting to get on my nerves.

Stan: I know everything about basketball - it's one of the interesting things about me.
Sophia: Please. You've lived here for two months; there's nothing interesting about you.
Stan: Go on, ask me anything.
Sophia: All right... when are you moving out?
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post #7 of 11
7/26/08 at 2:54pm

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

I always, even as a kid and now as an adult, wished I had a Grandmother like Sophia. She just was so funny and cut straight to the heart of the matter all the time. I think my fave bit with her would be the two parter about Dorothy having Chronic Fatigue. At the end when they're out for dinner, and Dorothy orders a $400 bottle of champagne, and Sophia rescues them from paying for it..."Now, it's a celebration!" and she cackles. Great stuff.

RIP Estelle.
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post #8 of 11
7/26/08 at 3:05pm

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood
I always wondered how many Golden Girls fans realized Estelle was about the same age as her co-stars although she played the mother of one of them.
I certainly didn't! I was shocked to read that she was a) still alive and b) only 84, making her sixty-something during the show's run.
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post #9 of 11
7/26/08 at 4:53pm

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

Harvey Fierstein, the Broadway actor and playwright, wrote a wonderful tribute to his old friend and colleague in the New York Post:

Quote:
AT the height of popularity of "The Golden Girls," there was no more beloved character on television than Sophia Petrillo. Estelle Getty, who brought Sophia indelibly to life, was awestruck: "What the hell is going on? I have the highest TVQ of any woman on television?"

It was true. For several years, Estelle Getty, formerly Estelle Gettleman of Bayside, Queens, was the most bankable star on any network. She was bigger than Carol Burnett, more saleable than Mary Tyler Moore and surer to deliver viewers than Cher. Still, the day after she won the Emmy, she told me she'd trade it and her Golden Globe for a Tony.

Despite all of the glamour, glory and gold of television fame, Estelle Getty was a theater creature.

With her husband, Arthur, and friends Anne and Jules Weiss, she was a fixture at La Mama ETC and other off-off Broadway venues. Working as a bookkeeper by day, this semi-pro actress haunted the East Village by night supporting experimental theater.

In 1978, when we produced the first of the plays that would become "Torch Song Trilogy," Estelle chided me: "Listen, Mr. Big Shot Playwright. Why don't you write the role of your mother, and I'll play it opposite you?"

Just picturing this 4-foot-8-inch fireball playing the mother of a 6-foot-tall drag queen made me giggle. The following year, when she came to see the second of the trilogy, she challenged me again, and this time I took the bait. I went home and created Mrs. Beckoff for Estelle.

From the first reading through seven years of productions here and on the road, the marriage of actress to role was remarkable. There was simply nothing like seeing this henna-wigged tornado in a turquoise suit arrive onstage to announce, "I'm the mother."

***
The thing about Estelle was that you could not catch her acting. She was being. If her character was supposed to be angry, Estelle got angry. If her character was brokenhearted, the actress was brokenhearted. It all felt real.

***
Popular thinking is that by creating Mrs. Beckoff, I launched Estelle's career. But it is just as true that when Estelle inspired that character, she gave me mine.

***
Estelle and I remained friends and supporters of each other's efforts for more than 30 years. I'm proud to say that her last job was voicing a character for my HBO family special, "The Sissy Duckling." I take comfort knowing the world will always have a part of her in those endless "Golden Girls" reruns.

But only those who saw her onstage have any idea who we really lost this week.
http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/...con_121425.htm

M.
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post #10 of 11
7/26/08 at 8:06pm

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies

YouTube - SOPHIA CRIES (The Golden Girls)

RIP
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post #11 of 11
7/26/08 at 10:43pm

Re: Estelle Getty (of The Golden Girls) Dies



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