Beatrice Arthur

Beatrice Arthur

Birth name: Bernice Frankel
Born: May 13, 1922
Died: April 25, 2009 (at age 86)
Birthplace: New York City, New York, U.S.
Popularity:
Biography

Beatrice Arthur (born Bernice Frankel; May 13, 1922 - April 25, 2009), also known as Bea Arthur, was an American actress, comedian, and singer. Her career spanned seven decades.

Arthur achieved fame as the character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family (1971-72) and Maude (1972-78), and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls (1985-92), 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

Beatrice Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922, to Philip and Rebecca (née Pressner) Frankel in New York City. Arthur was raised in a Jewish home with sisters Gertrude and Marian Kay. In 1933, the Frankel family relocated to Cambridge, Maryland, where her parents subsequently operated a women's clothing shop. She attended Linden Hall School for Girls, an all-girls' boarding school in Lititz, Pennsylvania, before enrolling at Blackstone College for Girls in Blackstone, Virginia, where she was active in the school's drama program.

During World War II, she worked as a truck driver and typist in the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve, receiving an Honorable Discharge in September 1945.

Career

Theater

From 1947, 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 unsuccessful 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 described 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 addressed serious sociopolitical topics of the era that were considered taboo for a sitcom, including the Vietnam War, the Nixon Administration, Maude's bid for a Congressional seat, divorce, menopause, drug use, alcoholism, nervous breakdown, mental illness, gay rights, abortion, and 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 rerun.

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. Later the same year (1978), 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 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 was a hit, and remained a top-ten ratings fixture for six of its 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, with Cheech Marin as their new foil. Arthur made a guest appearance in a two-part episode, but the new series lasted only one season.

Film

Arthur sporadically appeared in films, reprising her stage role as Vera Charles in the 1974 film adaption of Mame, opposite Lucille Ball. She 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 appeared in the 1995 American movie 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 as well as 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 appeared in a first-season episode of Malcolm in the Middle as Mrs. White, one of Dewey's babysitters. 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. 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, Ellen DeGeneres and Peggy Lee, in Richard Barone's "There'll Be Another Spring: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee" at the Hollywood Bowl in 2004. 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; Lee Strasberg taught me what I call reality; and 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 Los Angeles 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 British 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 was a longtime champion of civil rights for women, the elderly, and the Jewish communities, in her two major television roles and through her charity work and personal outspokenness.

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

A private and introverted woman, Arthur died at her home in the Sullivan Canyon section of Brentwood in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 25, 2009. Her family acknowledged the cause of death was cancer, but declined to specify what type. She was survived by her two sons and two granddaughters. Her body was cremated.

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. On the Today Show by phone, McClanahan said she and Arthur got along together "like cream". White said, "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 heavily damaged in October 2012 by Hurricane Sandy, but has since been restored and re-opened. The Bea Arthur Residence is an 18-bed residence in Manhattan for homeless LGBT youth operated by the Ali Forney Center.

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 received the second most nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series with nine (9). Only Mary Tyler Moore, with ten (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 Television 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 McClanahan and White.

Filmography

Television and film

Year Title Role Notes
1951-58 Kraft Television Theatre
1951 Once Upon a Tune
1951-1953, 1955-1958 Studio One
1955 Max Liebman Presents: Kaleidoscope
1954-1956 Caesar's Hour Regular performer
1957 Washington Square
1957 The Steve Allen Show
1958 The Seven Lively Arts
1958 Tonight Starring Jack Parr
1958 Omnibus
1958 The Gift of the Magi
1959 The George Gobel Show
1959 That Kind of Woman
1960 The Best of Anything
1961 The Perry Como Show
1962 The Garry Moore Show
1963 The Sid Caesar Show
1970 Lovers and Other Strangers
1971 & 1972 All in the Family
1972-1978 Maude
1973 The 45th Annual Academy Awards
1974-1976-1985 The Merv Griffin Show
1974 The 28th Annual Tony Awards
1974 & 1980 The Mike Douglas Show
1974 Mame
1974-1977, 1980, 1985, 1986, 1990 The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1975, 1976, 1980 Dinah
1976 & 1979 Saturday Night Live
1976 Cos
1977 The 31st Annual Tony Awards
1977 The 29th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1977 Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
1978 CBS: On the Air
1978 The 30th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1978 Star Wars Holiday Special
1979 The Mary Tyler Moore Hour
1980 The Beatrice Arthur Special
1980 30 Years of TV Comedy's Greatest Hits: To Laughter with Love
1980 Soap
1980 Bob Hope Special: Bob Hope-Hope, Women and Song
1981 Omnibus
1981 The 35th Annual Tony Awards
1981 The 33rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1981 History of the World, Part I
1982 Bob Hope's Women I Love-Beautiful but Funny
1982 Nights of 100 Stars
1982 Broadway Plays Washington on Kennedy Center Tonight
1983 Amanda's (series; lasted 4 months)
1983 The 9th Annual People's Choice Awards
1984 The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast: Joan Collins
1984 The 1st Academy TV Hall of Fame
1984 a.k.a. Pablo
1984 P.O.P.
1985 The NBC All Star Hour
1985 Entertainment Tonight
1985-1992 The Golden Girls Dorothy Zbornak
1985 The 37th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1985 The 10th Circus of the Stars
1986 The 40th Annual Tony Awards
1986 All Star Party for Clint Eastwood
1986 The 38th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1986 NBC 60th Anniversary Celebration
1986 The 43rd Annual Golden Globe Awards
1986 Walt Disney World's 15th Birthday Celebration
1986 Late Night with David Letterman
1986 The 46th Annual Golden Apple Awards
1986 The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts
1987 The 39th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1987 All Star Party for Joan Collins
1987 Comic Relief '87
1987 All Star Gala at Ford's Theater Host
1987 The 1st Annual American Comedy Awards
1987 The 44th Annual Golden Globe Awards
1987 The 13th Annual People's Choice Awards
1987 This is Your Life
1987 Happy 100th Birthday Hollywood
1987 The 41st Annual Tony Awards
1987 Family Comedy Hour
1988 The 9th Annual American Black Achievement Awards
1988 The 45th Annual Golden Globe Awards
1988 In Performance at the White House; A Salute to Broadway: Showstoppers
1988 Irving Berlin's 100th Birthday Celebration
1988 The 40th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1988 Mickey's 60th Birthday as Herself
1988 The 13th Circus of the Stars
1988 My First Love (ABC-TV Movie)
1989 The 46th Annual Golden Globe Awards
1989 Empty Nest
1989 The 3rd Annual American Comedy Awards
1989 Bob Hope's Birthday Spectacular in Paris
1989 The Society of Singers Presents a Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald
1989 The 41st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1989 Later with Bob Costas
1989 The Arsenio Hall Show
1989 The 49th Annual Golden Apple Awards
1989 Live with Regis and Kathie Lee
1990 The TV Academy Tribute to Angela Lansbury
1990 The 21st BAFTA Awards
1990 The 4th Annual American Comedy Awards
1990 The Earth Day Special
1990 Aspel & Company
1990 Night of 100 Stars III
1990 The 42nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1990 Des O'Connor Tonight
1990 A Conversation with Dinah
1990 Live from the London Palladium: Happy Birthday, Happy New Year!
1991 The 17th Annual People Choice Awards
1991 The 48th Annual Golden Globe Awards
1991 The 5th Annual American Comedy Awards
1991 The 43rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
1991 Funny Women of Television
1991 Dame Edna's Hollywood
1992 Evening at Pops
1992 The Howard Stern Show
1992 Guest Night
1992 The 6th Annual American Comedy Awards
1992 The Golden Palace 2 episodes
1992 Verstehen Sie Spaß?
1992 The 1992 Pacific Center HIV-AIDS Benefit
1993 The 7th Annual American Comedy Awards
1993 Out There
1993 This Joint is Jumpin'
1993 The 47th Annual Tony Awards
1993 Boulevard Bio
1993 Sean's Show
1994 Jerry Herman's Broadway at the Hollywood Bowl
1994 The 8th Annual American Comedy Awards
1994 Bob Hope's Birthday Memories
1994 She TV
1995 The 9th Annual Genesis Awards
1995 50 Years of Funny Females
1995 This Morning
1995 For Better or Worse
1996 The 10th American Comedy Awards
1996 The 50th Annual Tony Awards
1996 & 1997 Dave's World cast member
1997 The Rosie O'Donnell Show
1998 The RuPaul Show
1998 Ellen: A Hollywood Tribute, Part 1
1998 CBS: The first 50 Years
1998 NY TV: By the People Who Made It-Part I & II
1999 The 53rd Annual Tony Awards
1999 Beggars and Choosers
1999 Emily of New Moon
1999 The Martin Short Show
2000 So Graham Norton
2000 Malcolm in the Middle "Water Park (Part 1)"
2000 Intimate Portrait: Rue McClanahan
2000 Enemies of Laughter
2000 E! True Hollywood Story: The Golden Girls
2000 E! True Hollywood Story: Good Times
2000 E! True Hollywood Story: All in the Family
2000 The 70s: The Decade That Changed Television
2001 Intimate Portrait: Estelle Getty
2001 Futurama as "Femputer" in the episode "Amazon Women in the Mood"
2001 Today
2002 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
2003 Great Women on Television Comedy
2003 Intimate Portrait: Bea Arthur
2003 TV Land Awards: A Celebration of Classic TV
2003 Rove Live
2003 Broadway: The Golden Age by the Legends Who Were There
2003 Through the Keyhole
2003 The Golden Girls: Their Greatest Moments
2003 Today with Des and Mel
2003 Richard & Judy
2003 The Terry and Gaby Show
2004 The 2nd Annual TV Land Awards: A Celebration of Classic TV
2004 Great Performances
2004 The Best of So Graham Norton
2004 Inside TV Land: Primetime Politics
2004 TV's Greatest Sidekicks
2005 Inside TV Land: Tickled Pink
2005 Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson
2005 TV Land Confidential
2005 Curb Your Enthusiasm as Larry David's deceased mother Season 5 finale
2006 Entertainment Tonight
2006 Biography: Bea Arthur
2006 The 100 Greatest TV Quotes & Catchphrases
2007 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
2008 The 6th Annual TV Land Awards
2008 Inside Edition as Herself
2008 Entertainment Tonight
2009 Entertainment Tonight
2014 Broadway: Beyond The Golden Age

Theater performances

Year Title Role Notes
1947 Lysistrata
1947 Gas
1947 The Dog Beneath the Skin
1947 Yerma
1948 No Exit
1948 The Taming of the Shrew
1948 Six Characters in Search of an Author
1948 The Owl and the Pussycat
1949 Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
1949 Yes is for a Very Young Man
1949 The Creditors
1949 Heartbreak House
1951 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
1951 Personal Appearance
1951 Candle Light
1951 Love or Money
1951 The Voice of the Turtle
1951 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
1953 The New Moon
1954-55 The Threepenny Opera
1955 What's the Rush?
1955 Shoestring Revue
1955 Plain and Fancy
1955 Seventh Heaven
1956 Mistress of the Inn
1956 Ziegfeld Follies
1956 Shoestring '57
1957 Hamlet
1957 Nature's Way
1958 Ulysses in Nighttown
1959 Chic
1960 The Gay Divorcee at the Cherry Lane
1962 A Matter of Position
1964 Fiddler on the Roof Yenta the Matchmaker
1966 Mame Vera Charles won Tony Award-Featured Actress in a Musical
1968 A Mother's Kisses closed on the road
1981 The Floating Lightbulb
1981 Hey, Look Me Over!
1994 Easter Bonnet Competition: A Salute to 100 Years of Broadway
1994 La Fille du Regiment
1995-96 Bermuda Avenue Triangle
November 17, 1996 Angela Lansbury - A Celebration benefit concert
1997-98 After Play
1998 Jubilee
1999 Thoroughly Modern Millie
2000 Strike Up the Band
2000 The Threepenny Opera Reunion Concert
2000-2006 An Evening with Bea Arthur Westport, Connecticut (July 28-30, 2000)

Santa Fe, New Mexico (September 24, 2002)
Los Angeles, California (January 31 - February 1, 2004)
Saugatuck, Michigan (May 22-23, 2004)
Provincetown, Massachusetts (August 21, 2004)
Columbus, Georgia (October 30, 2004)
Nyack, New York (March 4-6, 2005)
Fort Wayne, Indiana (April 17, 2005)
Mount Pleasant, Michigan (April 19, 2005)
Atlantic City, New Jersey (June 3-4, 2005)
Holmdel, New Jersey (June 7, 2005)
Las Vegas, Nevada (August 27, 2005)
Hampton, Virginia (September 16-17, 2005)
Alexandria, Virginia (September 22, 2005)
Geneva, New York (September 24, 2005)
San Francisco, California (January 7, 2006)
Salem, Oregon (January 21, 2006)
Scottsdale, Arizona (February 24-25, 2006)
University Park, Illinois (March 19, 2006)

2001-2003 And Then There's Bea United States Tour (April 24, 2001 - January 13, 2002)

Melbourne, Australia (October 15-27, 2002)
Sydney, Australia (October 29 - November 10, 2002)
Johannesburg, South Africa (August 12-24, 2003)
Cape Town, South Africa (August 26 - September 7, 2003)

2002 Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends New York, New York (January 29, 2002 - April 14, 2002)

Toronto, Canada (November 20 - December 8, 2002)

2003 Bea Arthur at The Savoy in London, England (September 15 - October 18, 2003)
2004 A Celebration of Life in Washington, D.C. (May 26, 2004)
2004 There'll Be Another Spring: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee at the Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, California (July 14, 2004)
2004 Bea Arthur at the El Portal in North Hollywood, California (August 5-8, 2004)
2005 Bea Arthur Back on Broadway (at 95th Street) in New York, New York (November 21, 2005)
2006 Bea Arthur Back at the El Portal in North Hollywood, California (February 16-19, 2006)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]


Terms Privacy Join Contact
Contact Any Star FanPal • 2024