Were The Golden Girls Friends In Real Life?
Nothing makes you want to bust out a cheesecake and get down to gossiping quite like the "Golden Girls" theme song. But the catchy intro — the one that begins with the immortal line "Thank you for being a friend" — calls into question how tight-knit the golden foursome really was.
From 1985 to 1992, "The Golden Girls" followed housemates Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan), Rose Nylund (Betty White), Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur), and Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty) as they lived out their golden years together in Miami. For the most part, the four actors were as amicable as their characters. In her 2007 memoir, "My First Five Husbands...and the Ones Who Got Away" (via E! News), McClanahan wrote, "[The] chemistry was plain as a preacher's daughter. Our set was a happy one."
White concurred, remarking in her own 1987 memoir, "Betty White in Person," "I don't even want to contemplate what the set of 'The Golden Girls' would be like if we didn't all support and respect one another." For White, the on-set camaraderie felt even stronger. "The fact that we also happen to be nuts about each other was an added starter which could not have been foreseen when the show was first put together," she added.
Still, some cast members were closer than others. White and McClanahan were already friends upon joining "The Golden Girls," having worked together previously on the '80s sitcom "Mama's Family," and they stayed close after "Golden Girls" ended. However, White and Arthur's relationship was somewhat contentious.
Betty White and Bea Arthur didn't always get along
Bea Arthur and Betty White may have played great friends onscreen, but behind the scenes, things were a little more complicated. It partly came down to clashing personality types. Arthur could be as standoffish and cutting as Dorothy. "My mom unknowingly carried the attitude that it was fun to have somebody to be angry at," Arthur's son, Matthew Saks, told Closer Weekly. "It was almost like Betty became her nemesis, someone she could always roll her eyes about at work."
White and Arthur's disparate acting styles didn't help. In between scenes, Arthur — who came from a theater background — liked to stay focused and in character. White, a gameshow veteran, would chat with the audience. "She found me a pain in the neck sometimes," White told The Village Voice in 2011. "It was my positive attitude — and that made Bea mad sometimes. Sometimes if I was happy, she'd be furious!"
That Arthur and White competed for the same awards didn't help mitigate their personality clashes. All four cast members eventually won Emmys for their work on "The Golden Girls," but White won hers first, which reportedly upset Arthur. Still, Saks insisted that the pair were friends, often driving to work and getting lunch together.
"Things got pretty spicy once in a while," Rue McClanahan wrote in her book, "but what mattered most to each of us individually and all of us as a group: the chemistry worked. We were damn funny. And we did it together."