Bea Arthur Biography

Beatrice "Bea" Arthur (May 13, 1922 " April 25, 2009) was an American actress, comedienne, and singer whose career spanned seven decades. Arthur achieved fame as the character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family and Maude, and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, winning Emmy Awards for both roles. A stage actress both before and after her television success, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Vera Charles in the original cast of Mame (1966).

Early life

Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922 to Philip and Rebecca Frankel (1902"1986) in New York City. Arthur was Jewish. In 1933, her family moved to Cambridge, Maryland, where her parents operated a women's clothing shop. She attended Linden Hall School for Girls, an all-girls' boarding school in Lititz, Pennsylvania, before enrolling in the now-defunct Blackstone College for Girls in Blackstone, Virginia, where she was active in drama productions. During World War II, she served in the United States Marine Corps, though she later denied it.

Career

Theater

From 1947, Bea Arthur studied at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with German director Erwin Piscator. 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 Marc Blitzstein's English-language adaptation of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, Nadine Fesser in the 1957 premiere of Herman Wouk's Nature's Way at the Coronet Theatre, 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. In 1981, she appeared in Woody Allen's The Floating Light Bulb. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1994 portraying the Duchess of Krakenthorp, a speaking role, in Gaetano Donizetti's La fille du régiment.

Television

In 1971, Arthur was invited by Norman Lear to guest-star on his sitcom All in the Family, as Maude Findlay, the cousin of Edith Bunker. An outspoken liberal feminist, Maude was the antithesis to the bigoted, conservative Republican Archie Bunker, who descried her as a "New Deal fanatic". Then nearly 50, Arthur's tart turn appealed to viewers and to executives at CBS, who, she would later recall, asked "'Who is that girl? Let's give her her own series.'"

That series, previewed in her second All in the Family appearance, would be simply titled Maude. The show, debuting in 1972, found her living in the affluent community of Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, with her fourth husband Walter (Bill Macy) and divorced daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau). Her performance in the role garnered Arthur several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, including her Emmy win in 1977 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

Maude would also earn a place for Arthur in the history of the women's liberation movement. The groundbreaking series didn't shirk from addressing serious sociopolitical topics of the era that were fairly taboo for a sitcom, from the Vietnam War, the Nixon Administration and Maude's bid for a Congressional seat, divorce, menopause, drug use, alcoholism, nervous breakdown, mental illness, abortion, to spousal abuse. A prime example is "Maude's Dilemma", a two-part episode airing near Thanksgiving of 1972 in which Maude's character grapples with a late-life pregnancy, ultimately deciding to have an abortion.

Even though abortion was legal in New York State, it was illegal in many other regions of the country, and as such sparked controversy. As a result, dozens of affiliates refused to broadcast the episode when it was originally scheduled, substituting either a repeat from earlier in the season or a Thanksgiving TV special in its place. However, by the time of the summer rerun season six months later all the flak had died down, and the stations that refused to air the episode upon its first run reinstated it for the reruns the following summer. As a result, a reported 65 million viewers watched the two episode arc either in their first run that November or during the following summer as a re-run.

The episode aired two months before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the procedure nationwide in the Roe v. Wade outcome in early 1973. By 1978, however, Arthur decided to move on from the series.

That year, she costarred in Star Wars Holiday Special, in which she had a song and dance routine in the Mos Eisley Cantina. She hosted The Beatrice Arthur Special on CBS on January 19, 1980, which paired the star in a musical comedy revue with Rock Hudson, Melba Moore and Wayland Flowers and Madame.

After appearing in the short-lived 1983 sitcom Amanda's (an adaptation of the British series Fawlty Towers), Arthur was cast in the sitcom The Golden Girls in 1985, in which she played Dorothy Zbornak, a divorced substitute teacher living in a Miami 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. The series became a hit, and remained a top-ten ratings fixture for seven 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.

Film

Arthur also sporadically appeared in films, reprising her stage role as Vera Charles in the 1974 film adaption of Mame, opposite Lucille Ball. Additionally, Arthur portrayed overbearing mother Bea Vecchio in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), and had a cameo as a Roman unemployment clerk in Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I (1981). She starred in the 1995 American For Better or Worse as Beverly Makeshift.

Later career

After Arthur left The Golden Girls, she made several guest appearances on television shows and organized and toured in her one-woman show, alternately titled An Evening with Bea Arthur and And Then There's Bea. She made a guest appearance on the American cartoon Futurama, in the Emmy-nominated 2001 episode "Amazon Women in the Mood", as the voice of the Femputer who ruled the giant Amazonian women. She also appeared in a first-season episode of Malcolm in the Middle as Mrs. White, Dewey's babysitter, who is taken away in an ambulance for reasons unknown. She was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her performance. She also appeared as Larry David's mother on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

In 2002, she returned 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 career. The show was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. The previous year had been the category's first, and there had been only one nominee. That year, Arthur was up against solo performances by soprano Barbara Cook, comedian John Leguizamo, and Arthur's fellow student in Piscator's program at The New School, actress Elaine Stritch, who won for Elaine Stritch: At Liberty.

In addition to appearing in a number of programs looking back at her own work, Arthur performed in stage and television tributes for Jerry Herman, Bob Hope, Peggy Lee, and Ellen DeGeneres. In 2005, she participated in the Comedy Central roast of Pamela Anderson, where she recited sexually explicit passages from Anderson's book Star Struck in a deadpan fashion.

Influences

In 1999, Arthur told an interviewer of the three influences in her career: "Sid Caesar taught me the outrageous; [method acting guru] Lee Strasberg taught me what I call reality; and [original Threepenny Opera star] Lotte Lenya, whom I adored, taught me economy."

Personal life

Arthur was married twice. Her first marriage took place during her time in the military, when she married fellow Marine Robert Alan Aurthur, a screenwriter, television, and film producer and director, whose surname she took and kept (though with a modified spelling). Shortly after they divorced in 1950, she married director Gene Saks with whom she adopted two sons, Matthew (born in 1961), an actor, and Daniel (born in 1964), a set designer; they remained married until 1980.

In 1972, she moved to the Greater Los Angeles Area and sublet her apartment on Central Park West in New York City and her country home in Bedford, New York.

In a 2003 interview, while in London promoting her one woman show, she described the English capital as her 'favourite city in the world'.

Arthur was a committed animal rights activist and frequently supported People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals campaigns. Arthur joined PETA in 1987 after a Golden Girls anti-fur episode. Arthur wrote letters, made personal appearances and placed ads against the use of furs, foie gras, and farm animal cruelty by KFC suppliers. In Norfolk, Virginia near the site of the PETA headquarters, there is a dog park named Bea Arthur Dog Park in her honor.

Arthur's longtime championing of civil rights for women, the elderly, and the Jewish & LGBT communities"?in her two television roles and through her charity work and personal outspokenness"?has led her to be cited as an LGBT icon.

Regarding politics, Arthur herself was a liberal Democrat who confirmed her views by saying, "I've been a Democrat my whole life. That's what makes Maude and Dorothy so believable, we have the same viewpoints on how our country should be handled."

Death

Arthur died at her home in the Greater Los Angeles Area in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 25, 2009. She succumbed to cancer, and her body was cremated after her death.

On April 28, 2009, the Broadway community paid tribute to Arthur by dimming the marquees of New York City's Broadway theater district in her memory for one minute at 8:00 pm

Arthur's co-stars from The Golden Girls, Rue McClanahan and Betty White, commented on her death via telephone on an April 27 episode of Larry King Live as well as other news outlets such as ABC. On the Today Show by phone, McClanahan said she and Bea got along together, 'like cream.' She also stated,"I knew it would hurt, I just didn't know it would hurt this much." Longtime friends Adrienne Barbeau (with whom she had worked on Maude) and Angela Lansbury (with whom she had worked in Mame) reflected on her death: Barbeau said, "We've lost a unique, incredible talent. No one could deliver a line or hold a take like Bea and no one was more generous or giving to her fellow performers"; and Lansbury said, "She became and has remained my Bosom Buddy [...] I am deeply saddened by her passing, but also relieved that she is released from the pain".

Arthur bequeathed $300,000 to The Ali Forney Center, a New York City organization that provides housing for homeless LGBT youths. The center was destroyed in October 2012 by Hurricane Sandy.

Awards

Arthur won the American Theatre Wing's Tony Award in 1966 as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance that year as Vera Charles in the original Broadway production of Jerry Herman's musical Mame.

Arthur has received the second most nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series with 9. Only Mary Tyler Moore, with 10 nominations, has more. She received the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series twice, once in 1977 for Maude and again in 1988 for The Golden Girls. She was inducted into the Academy's Hall of Fame in 2008.

On June 8, 2008, The Golden Girls was awarded the Pop Culture award at the Sixth Annual TV Land Awards. Arthur (in one of her final public appearances) accepted the award with co-stars Rue McClanahan and Betty White.

Television credits

• Kraft Television Theatre (1951"1958)
• Studio One (1951"1953)
• The Threepenny Opera (1956)
• Max Liebman Presents: Kaleidoscope (1955)
• Caesar's Hour (regular performer 1954"1956)
• The Seven Lively Arts (1958)
• Omnibus (1958)
• Hallmark Hall of Fame (1958)
• The George Gobel Show (1959)
• The Perry Como Show (1961)
• All in the Family (1971 & 1972)
• Maude (1972"1978)
• The 45th Annual Academy Awards (1973)
• Mame with (Lucille Ball) (1974)
• The Mike Douglas Show (1974 & 1980)
• The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1974"1977 ,1980, 1985, 1986, 1990)
• Dinah (1975 & 1976)
• Saturday Night Live (1976 & 1979)
• Cos (1976)
• Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1977)
• CBS: On the Air (1978)
• Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
• The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979)
• The Beatrice Arthur Special (1980)
• Soap (1980)
• History of the World, Part I (1981)
• Omnibus (1981)
• Nights of 100 Stars (1982)
• Broadway Plays Washington on Kennedy Center Tonight (1982)
• Amanda's (1983) (series; lasted 4 months)
• a.k.a. Pablo (1984)
• P.O.P. (1984)
• The Golden Girls (1985"1992)
• Circus of the Stars #10 (1985)
• NBC 60th Anniversary Celebration (1986)
• Walt Disney World's 15th Birthday Celebration (1986)
• Late Night with David Letterman (1986)
• The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts (1986)
• All Star Gala at Ford's Theater (host) (1987)
• The 13th Annual People's Choice Awards (1987)
• This is Your Life" (1987)
• The 41st Annual Tony Awards (1987)
• Comic Relief '87 (1987)
• Family Comedy Hour (1987)
• Irving Berlin's 100th Birthday Celebration (1988)
• Circus of the Stars #13 (1988)
• My First Love (1988) (ABC-TV Movie)
• Empty Nest (1989)
• Aspel & Company (1990)
• Night of 100 Stars III (1990)
• The 42nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (1990)
• Dame Edna's Hollywood (1991)
• The Howard Stern Show (1992)
• Guest Night (1992)
• 6th Annual American Comedy Awards (1992)
• The Golden Palace (1992) 2 episodes
• This Joint Is Jumpin' (1993)
• The 47th Annual Tony Awards (1993)
• Boulevard Bio (1993)
• Sean's Show (1993)
• Jerry Herman's Broadway at the Hollywood Bowl (1994)

• Bob Hope: Happy 91st Birthday, Bob (1994)
• 50 Years of Funny Females (1995)
• The 50th Annual Tony Awards (1996)
• Dave's World (cast member 1996 & 1997)
• The Rosie O'Donnell Show (1997)
• The RuPaul Show (1998)
• Ellen: A Hollywood Tribute, Part 1" (1998)
• The 53rd Annual Tony Awards (1999)
• Beggars and Choosers (1999)
• The Martin Short Show (1999)
• So Graham Norton (2000)
• Intimate Portrait: Rue McClanahan (2000)
• Malcolm in the Middle, "Water Park (Part 1)" (2000)
• E! True Hollywood Story: All in the Family (2000)
• Intimate Portrait: Estelle Getty (2001)
• Futurama as "Femputer" in the episode "Amazon Women in the Mood" (2001)
• Today (2001)
• The View (2002)
• CBS News Sunday Morning (2002)
• The Rosie O'Donnell Show (2002)
• Good Morning America (2002)
• The Daily Show (2002)
• The Big O! True West Hollywood Story (2002)
• TV Most Censored Moments (2002)
• TV Tales: The Golden Girls (2002)
• Open Mike with Mike Bullard (2002)
• Because I Said So (2002)
• Inside TV Land: Taboo TV (2002)
• Intimate Portrait: Bea Arthur (2003)
• TV Land Awards: A Celebration of Classic TV (2003)
• Rove Live (2003)
• Through The Keyhole (2003)
• Broadway: The Golden Age by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
• The Golden Girls: Their Greatest Moments (2003)
• Today with Des and Mel (2003)
• Richard & Judy (2003)
• The Terry and Gaby Show (2003)
• The Second Annual TV Land Awards: A Celebration of Classic TV (2004)
• The Best of So Graham Norton (2004)
• Inside TV Land: Primetime Politics (2004)
• TV's Greatest Sidekicks (2004)
• Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson (2005)
• TV Land Confidential (2005)
• Curb Your Enthusiasm as Larry David's deceased mother on the Season 5 finale (2005)
• Entertainment Tonight (2006)
• Biography: Bea Arthur (2006)
• The View (2007)
• TV Land Confidential (2007)
• Entertainment Tonight (2007)
• Back to the Grind (2007)
• Entertainment Weekly & TV Land Present: The 50 Greatest TV Icons (2007)
• Entertainment Tonight (2008)
• The 6th Annual TV Land Awards (2008)
• Entertainment Tonight (2008)

Theater performances

• Lysistrata (1947)
• The Dog Beneath the Skin (1947)
• Yerma (1947)
• No Exit (1948)
• The Taming of the Shrew (1948)
• Six Characters in Search of an Author (1948)
• The Owl and the Pussycat (1948)
• Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1949)
• Yes is for a Very Young Man (1949)
• The Creditors (1949)
• Heartbreak House (1949)
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1951)
• Personal Appearance (1951)
• Candle Light (1951)
• Love or Money (1951)
• The Voice of the Turtle (1951)
• The New Moon (1953)
• The Threepenny Opera (1954)
• What's the Rush? (1955)
• Shoestring Revue (1955)
• Plain and Fancy (1955)
• Seventh Heaven (1955)
• Mistress of the Inn (1956)
• Ziegfeld Follies (1956)
• Nature's Way (1957)
• Ulysses in Nighttown (1958)
• The Gay Divorcee at the Cherry Lane (1960)
• A Matter of Position (1962)
• Fiddler on the Roof (1964)
• Mame (1966)
• A Mothter's Kisses (1968), closed on the road
• The Floating Lightbulb (1981)
• La Fille du Regiment (1994)
• Bermuda Avenue Triangle (1995"1996)
• Angela Lansbury " A Celebration (November 17, 1996) (benefit concert)
• After Play (1997"1998)
• Strike Up the Band (2000)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Westport, Connecticut (July 28"30, 2000)
• And Then There's Bea United States Tour (April 24, 2001 " January 13, 2002)
• Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends in New York, New York (January 29, 2002 " April 14, 2002)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Santa Fe, New Mexico (September 24, 2002)
• And Then There's Bea in Melbourne, Australia (October 15"27, 2002)
• And Then There's Bea in Sydney, Australia (October 29 " November 10, 2002)

• Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends in Toronto, Canada (November 20 " December 8, 2002)
• And Then There's Bea in Johannesburg, South Africa (August 12"24, 2003)
• And Then There's Bea in Cape Town, South Africa (August 26 " September 7, 2003)
• Bea Arthur at The Savoy in London, England (September 15 " October 18, 2003)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Los Angeles, California (January 31 " February 1, 2004)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Saugatuck, Michigan (May 22"23, 2004)
• A Celebration of Life in Washington, D.C. (May 26, 2004)
• Bea Arthur at the El Portal in North Hollywood, California (August 5"8, 2004)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Provincetown, Massachusetts (August 21, 2004)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Columbus, Georgia (October 30, 2004)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Nyack, New York (March 4"6, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Fort Wayne, Indiana (April 17, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Mount Pleasant, Michigan (April 19, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Atlantic City, New Jersey (June 3"4, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Holmdel, New Jersey (June 7, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Las Vegas, Nevada (August 27, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Hampton, Virginia (September 16"17, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Alexandria, Virginia (September 22, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Geneva, New York (September 24, 2005)
• Bea Arthur Back on Broadway (at 95th Street) in New York, New York (November 21, 2005)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in San Francisco, California (January 7, 2006)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Salem, Oregon (January 21, 2006)
• Bea Arthur Back at the El Portal in North Hollywood, California (February 16"19, 2006)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in Scottsdale, Arizona (February 24"25, 2006)
• An Evening with Bea Arthur in University Park, Illinois (March 19, 2006)