Beatrice Arthur

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Beatrice Arthur

Beatrice Arthur (left) with Angela Lansbury at the 1989 Emmy Awards.
Birth name Bernice Frankel
Born May 13, 1923 (age 83)
Flag of United States New York City, United States
Notable roles Maude Findlay, Maude
Dorothy Zbornak, The Golden Girls
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
1977 Maude
1988 The Golden Girls

Beatrice Arthur (born Bernice Frankel, May 13, 1923) is an Emmy-and Tony Award winning American actress, singer, and comedian. She is known for her distinctive deep voice, acid wit and prominent stature, standing almost 5 ft 10 in (1.77 m).[1] Her trademark roles have been on television, playing the lead character on the popular sitcoms Maude and The Golden Girls.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Arthur was born in New York City to parents Philip and Rebecca Frankel and was raised in Maryland. She became a medical technologist before World War II, when she volunteered for the U.S. Marine Corps, becoming a nurse and one of its first female recruits.

Arthur was married for many years to her second husband, director Gene Saks, with whom she adopted two sons, but the marriage ended in divorce. [1]

[edit] Career

[edit] Theater roles

Arthur began her career as a member of the off Broadway theater group at The Cherry Lane Theatre in NY in the late 1940's. Coactors Anthony Franciosa and Robert Herrell were also members at that time.

On stage, her roles included "Lucy Brown" in the 1954 Off-Broadway premiere of Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, "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 recreated the role on film opposite Lucille Ball in 1974). In 1981, she appeared in Woody Allen's The Floating Lightbulb.

Two decades later, she toured the U.S. with a one-woman show in which she made a triumphant return to Broadway. 2002's Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends, a collection of stories and songs (with musician Billy Goldenberg) and based on her life and long career, was nominated for a Tony award for Best Special Theatrical Event, but lost to Elaine Stritch At Liberty.

[edit] Television roles

Arthur is perhaps best known for two long-running roles she portrayed on television; the title role on the popular sitcom Maude in the 1970s, and a starring role on The Golden Girls in the 1980s and 1990s.

In Maude, she played Maude Findlay, an outspoken liberal living in the community of Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, with her husband, Walter (Bill Macy). The show was a spinoff from All in the Family, on which Arthur had appeared in the same role, playing Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton)'s cousin, a feminist Democrat, and antithesis to the prejudiced, conservative Republican Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor).

In The Golden Girls, she played Dorothy Zbornak, a fiftysomething divorcée and substitute teacher who lived in a Miami, Florida, 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 is actually two months younger than Arthur in real life, and was heavily made up to look significantly older.) Dorothy had an acidic sense of humor and was prone to making witty, biting wisecracks, often directed at the man-hungry Blanche or dimwitted Rose.

[edit] Advocacy

Arthur has also been a committed animal rights activist, taking part in numerous campaigns for PETA[2]. She has appeared in several short films that run on the group's website. In particular, Arthur is identified with advocacy against the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, and their treatment of chickens prior to slaughter.

[edit] Pop culture references

  • Arthur is mentioned early in the Bret Easton Ellis novel Glamorama: The protagonist Victor wants to know if his girlfriend Chloe will be bringing "Beatrice and Julie." His acquaintance Beau wonders if he means "Beatrice Arthur and Julie Hagerty" but Victor really means Julie Delpy and Beatrice Dalle [3].
  • The popular comedy song The Guy Who Doesn't Know Things by Flying Like Wilma contains the line "'cause they're all members of PETA, and they subscribe to the word of Bea Arthur." The reasoning for this is based on an advertisement she did for PETA on Kentucky Fried Chicken.
  • Phil Hendrie on his former radio show, voiced a character named "Bill Duncy" who was a private pilot who believed that actors should be able to fly over the White House unrestricted and that "you could have civil unrest" if a celebrity is "blown out of the sky by a Navy sidewinder". This comedy skit, which aired on May 11, 2005, used Bea Arthur's name several times [4].

[edit] TV work

[edit] Stage appearances


Preceded by
Maria Karnilova
for Fiddler on the Roof		 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical
1966
for Mame		 Succeeded by
Peg Murray
for Cabaret

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ She stated she was 5' 9" and 1/2 on the March 20, 2007 episode of The View.
  2. ^ http://www.kfccruelty.com/bea.asp
  3. ^ http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:kBSDfOsNabcJ:www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/ellis-glamorama.html+Beatrice+Arthur+Glamorama&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
  4. ^ http://www.philhendrieshow.com/Radio/Show.aspx?action=view&id=374

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Arthur, Beatrice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frankel, Bernice
SHORT DESCRIPTION actress, singer, comedian
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City, New York
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
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