September 14, 1985: "The Golden Girls" Premieres

Left to right: Estelle Getty, Beatrice Arthur,

Rue McClanahan and Betty White

September 14, 1985: The Golden Girls premieres on NBC. The Miami-set sitcom lasts 7 seasons, and becomes an all-time favorite.

Beatrice Arthur was already a legend for playing the title character, an outspoken feminist, on the 1972-78 CBS sitcom Maude. One of her co-stars was Rue McClanahan, who played Maude's best friend, the nice but dumb Vivian Harmon. Betty White was already a long-standing TV star, including appearing on another iconic CBS sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as the smart-mouthed, maneating Sue Ann Nivens.

TV producer Tony Thomas, son of comedian Danny and brother of actress Marlo, wanted to produce a sitcom about older women in Miami, a city known for having a lot of older people, showing that they could have just as much fun as younger people. He created the series with Paul Junger Witt and his then-wife, Susan Harris, with whom Thomas had previously created the sitcoms Soap and its spinoff Benson.

Thomas wanted Bea Arthur, thinking the show needed a Maude type. So he went back-channel, first getting McClanahan and White -- but reversing their former roles. So when Rue approached Bea with the idea, Bea said she didn't want Rue playing "another Vivian." "Oh, but you don't understand," Rue said. "This time, Betty's playing Vivian, and I'm playing Sue Ann!" Bea immediately got the reference, and said, "Interesting!"

So Bea played Dorothy Zbornack, a tough teacher who moved from New York to Miami after splitting with her no-good cheating husband Stan, a recurring character played by Herb Edelman. Betty played Rose Nylund, a nice but dumb lady from St. Olaf, a small town in Minnesota. Her hometown's eccentricities featured in her stories that the other "girls" could never believe. (This may have been a nod to James Noble's Governor Gene Gatling, the good-natured, odd-story-telling, not dumb but in-over-his-head Governor on Benson.) Rose moved to Miami after the death of her husband, Charley, who was never shown.

And Rue played Blanche Devereaux, a Southern belle who had already moved to Miami with her husband, George, but had advertised for roommates after his death in a car crash. How she stayed faithful to him for years wasn't explained, but, both before and after her marriage, she slept around. And around, and around, and around.

In the pilot episode, Dorothy's 82-year-old mother, Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty), moved in with them, after her nursing home, Shady Pines, mysteriously burned down. Dorothy frequently threatened to send her back to the rebuilt Shady Pines, but never carried the threat out.

Oddly, Getty was younger than the actress playing her daughter: At the time the show began, Arthur was 63 years old, Getty was 62, McClanahan was 51, and White was also 63.

Being the youngest, McClanahan's character also was, and Blanche's age became a point of contention. In the 2nd season premiere, she feared she might be pregnant, and mentioned her age as being 48. To make matters worse for Blanche was that she didn't know who the prospective father was: According to her "little black book," there were 5 potential candidates! (And there's no way to know if 5 different men in a week is Blanche's "personal best"!)

(Coincidentally, 48 was also the age Maude was when she was pregnant, and got TV's 1st abortion, in 1972, when it was still illegal in most of the country, but legal in the State of New York, where her show was set.)

As it turned out, instead of being pregnant, Blanche was going through menopause, and was afraid this would make her less desirable to men. This also turned out not to be true, and she kept up her wild lifestyle, all the while denying that she was in her 50s. As Dorothy put it: "Blanche, have you heard the latest ad campaigns? 'Join the Navy, see the world, sleep with Blanche Devereaux.' 'Join the Army, be all you can be, and sleep with Blanche Devereaux.' 'The Marines are looking for a few good men who haven't slept with Blanche Devereaux!'"

All 4 women had very sharp wits, and the above just scratches the surface of the digs they got in against each other. Given enough provocation, even Rose could briefly get smart enough to slip in a great insult. In the end, however, they would always reconcile, and split a late-night cheesecake in the kitchen. In other words, Friends was not the white Living Single. Living Single was the young black Golden Girls. And Sex and the City was the young white Golden Girls.

Cindy Fee sang the theme song, "Thank You For Being a Friend," which had been written by Andrew Gold, and was a minor hit for him in 1978.

The Golden Girls was surprisingly progressive by the standards of the Reagan and Daddy Bush years. Blanche had a gay brother, Clayton Hollingsworth (Monte Markham). In his 1st appearance, she had trouble with him coming out to her, but accepted it; in his 2nd, he got married, though it wouldn't be legal in Florida for another 25 years.

The term "a friend of Dorothy" has long been used as a euphemism for a gay person, especially a woman. In a 1986 episode, Jean (Lois Nettleton), a friend of Dorothy's, moved to Miami after the death of her partner, and Dorothy was afraid to tell the others that Jean was a lesbian, until Jean admitted she was falling for Rose. Things were settled tastefully. And Dorothy's brother, Phil Petrillo (never portrayed onscreen), was a cross-dresser, which was difficult for Sophia to handle, until he died, and they had to deal with it.

The show ran 7 seasons, and inspired a spinoff, Empty Nest, starring former Soap star Richard Mulligan as a widowed pediatrician with 3 unmarried daughters. That show spun off another sitcom, Nurses. The shows occasionally crossed over with each other.

In the series finale, Dorothy married Blanche's other brother, Lucas Hollingsworth, played by Leslie Nielsen. Bea Arthur was done with the show, and apparently the jokes about her appearance bothered her more than the jokes about the others and their peculiarities bothered them. After all, Betty wasn't really dumb, Rue wasn't really easy, and Estelle wasn't really mean.

So, just as the 3 actors who wanted M*A*S*H to keep going starred in AfterMASH, which failed, White, McClanahan and Getty starred in The Golden Palace, where Rose, Blanche and Sophia ran a hotel, with help from comedian Cheech Marin as the hotel's chef, and an as-yet-unknown Don Cheadle as its manager. Despite some notable guest stars, including Arthur in a two-parter, the show tanked, and was canceled after 1 season. The conclusion of Empty Nest in 1995, after 7 seasons, ended the franchise.

Herb Edelman died in 1996, Estelle Getty in 2008, Bea Arthur in 2009, Rue McClanahan and Leslie Nielsen in 2010, Andrew Gold in 2011, and Paul Junger Witt in 2018. Betty White became America's favorite old person. She died on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2021, 17 days short of her 100th birthday. This was very upsetting to a lot of people, more so to Golden Girls fans than to fans of her other shows. Many people went online and issued profane remarks about how 2021 wouldn't let us take Betty into the New Year for her Centennial. As of September 14, 2022, Tony Thomas, Susan Harris and Cindy Fee are still alive.

UPDATE: In 2023, as a nod to the show's popularity among gay men, an all-drag version, 4 men playing the characters, began starring in Golden Girls: The Laughs Continue, which depicts the characters in the present day. The play has toured continuously.

In 2024, a rumor got around that there would be a reboot, starring former Saturday Night Live castmembers Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph, and former Friends star Lisa Kudrow -- the oldest of them, and, presumably, the one who would have played Sophia. But both Fey and Rudolph publicly denied the rumor. Susan Harris, in particular, has resisted efforts to reboot the show.

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September 14, 1985 was a Saturday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-4 at Yankee Stadium. The Jays scored 5 runs in the 6th inning, and that made the difference, as Jimmy Key went the distance for the win. Jesse Barfield hit a home run for them. Rickey Henderson homered for the Yankees, while Don Mattingly went 1-for-4, and Dave Winfield went 0-for-4 with an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

After winning the 1st game of this 4-game series on Thursday night, the Yankees lost the last 3, and that turned out to be the key series of the season, as the Jays ended up winning the American League Eastern Division title by 2 games.

* The New York Mets lost to the Montreal Expos, 5-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-1 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Lee Tunnell outpitched Steve Carlton. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* A doubleheader was split at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Cleveland Indians won the opener, 11-9. The Minnesota Twins won the nightcap, 5-3.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-0 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Bob Welch pitched a 6-hit shutout. Reds player-manager Pete Rose, who had officially broken Ty Cobb's career hits record 3 days earlier, went 1-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Detroit Tigers won the 1st game, 10-3. The Baltimore Orioles won the 2nd game, 5-4. Over the 2 games, Eddie Murray went 2-for-7 with 2 walks, and Cal Ripken Jr. went 3-for-9.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 10-8 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Dwight Evans won the game with a home run in the top of the 11th inning. Wade Boggs went 3-for-6 with an RBI. Paul Molitor went 1-for-5. Robin Yount did not play.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres, 4-3 at the Astrodome in Houston. Tony Gwynn went 2-for-4.

* The Texas Rangers beat the California Angels, 8-5 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). The Rangers scored 3 in the 8th and 2 in the 9th to win it. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Rod Carew, in his last month as an active player, went 1-for-4.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Oakland Athletics, 2-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. George Brett went 0-for-4.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-5 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

Among the college football games played that day were these:

* Number 1 Auburn beat Southern Mississippi, 29-18 at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Alabama. Auburn running back Vincent "Bo" Jackson would win the Heisman Trophy.

* Number 2 Southern Methodist University (SMU), Number 4 University of Southern California (USC), Number 6 Florida State University (FSU) and Number 7 Louisiana State University (LSU) were idle.

* Number 3 Florida were held to a tie, 28-28, at home at Florida Field, by Rutgers. For the Scarlet Knights, it was a "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29" situation, even though there was no rivalry between the schools.

Or, to put it another way: If the old saying, which originated in college football, of "A tie is like kissing your sister" is true, then, for Rutgers, this tie was like kissing their sister's really nice-looking best friend. While, for the Gators, this tie was like kissing their sister's other best friend. You know, the one with the "great personality."

* Number 5 Iowa beat Drake, 58-0 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Drake University is in Des Moines, and, since the 1950s, pretty much the only thing the Bulldogs' football program has had in common with the Hawkeyes' is that they're both in Iowa.

* Number 8 Oklahoma State beat North Texas, 10-9 at Lewis Field (now T. Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

* Number 9 Ohio State beat the University of Pittsburgh, 10-7 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Number 10 UCLA were held to a tie by Tennessee, 26-26 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Number 11 Penn State barely beat Temple, 27-25 at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania. Had Temple, from Philadelphia, beaten Penn State, it would have been a bigger deal than the aforementioned Rutgers beating any Top 10 team.

* Number 13 Notre Dame were upset by Michigan, 20-12 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

* And, among the service academies, Army beat Western Michigan, 48-6 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; Navy lost to Delaware, 16-13 at Delaware Stadium in Newark, Delaware; and Air Force beat Wyoming, 49-7 at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie, Wyoming.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat Sheffield Wednesday, 1-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.