Beatrice Arthur
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| Beatrice Arthur | |||||||||||
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 Beatrice Arthur at the 1987 Emmy Awards. |
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| Born | Beatrice Frankel May 13, 1922 New York City, New York, United States |
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| Other name(s) | Bea Arthur | ||||||||||
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Beatrice "Bea" Arthur (born Bernice Frankel May 13, 1922)[1]) is a two-time Emmy Award-winning and Tony Award winning American comedian, actress and singer. In an ongoing career spanning six decades, Arthur is perhaps best remembered for her trademark role as the title character, Maude Findlay, on the 1970s sitcom Maude, and for playing Dorothy Zbornak, the divorced substitute teacher on The Golden Girls.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Bea Arthur was born to Philip and Rebecca Frankel in New York City on May 13, 1922. Her family soon moved to Maryland where her parents operated a women's clothing shop. She attended the now-defunct Blackstone College in Blackstone, Virginia where she was active in drama productions.
[edit] Theater
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 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 in the unsuccessful film version opposite Lucille Ball in 1974). In 1981, she appeared in Woody Allen's The Floating Lightbulb.
[edit] Television
In 1972, Arthur was cast as the title character in the television series Maude. She played Maude Findlay, an outspoken liberal living in the affluent community of Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, with her husband, Walter (Bill Macy) and divorced daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau). The show was a spinoff from All in the Family, on which Arthur had appeared a couple of times in the same role, playing Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton)'s cousin, a feminist, and antithesis to the bigoted, conservative Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), who described Maude as a "New Deal fanatic".
In 1985, she was cast in the television series The Golden Girls on which she played Dorothy Zbornak, a divorced substitute teacher living in a Miami, Florida home 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 a year 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 and sarcastic wisecracks, often directed at the man-hungry Blanche or naive Rose.
[edit] Later life
After Arthur left The Golden Girls, she has made several guest appearances on television shows and even organized and toured with her one-woman show. She made a guest appearance on American cartoon Futurama, in the Emmy-nominated episode "Amazon Women in the Mood" as the voice of the Femputer who ruled the giant Amazonian women. She appeared in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle as Dewey's babysitter who possessed an unfortunate harmony with Dewey's likes and dislikes. She was nominated for a guest-star Emmy for her performance. She also showed up unexpectedly as Larry David's mother on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
In 2002, she made a triumphant return to Broadway starring in 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. The show was nominated for a Tony award for Best Special Theatrical Event, but lost to Elaine Stritch At Liberty.
In 2008, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced that Arthur will be inducted into its hall of fame. [2] On June 8, 2008, The Golden Girls was awarded the 'Pop Culture' award at the Sixth Annual TV Land Awards. Bea accepted the award with co-stars Rue McClanahan and Betty White.[3]
[edit] Personal life
Arthur was married twice, first to Robert Alan Aurthur, an author, whose surname she took and kept though with a modified spelling, and second to director Gene Saks from 1950-1978 with whom she adopted two sons, Matthew (born 14 July 1961), an actor and Daniel (born 8 May 1964), a set designer.
She primarily lives in the Greater Los Angeles Area and has sublet her apartment on Central Park West in New York City and her country home in Bedford, New York.
[edit] Television credits
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[edit] Theatre performances
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[edit] Filmography
- That Kind of Woman (1959)
- Lovers and Other Strangers (1970)
- Mame (1974)
- History of the World: Part I (1981) (cameo)
- My First Love (1988)
- For Better or For Worse (1996)
- Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997) (cameo)
- Enemies of Laughter (2000)
- Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
- Broadway: Beyond The Golden Age (2008) (documentary)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Beatrice Arthur at the Internet Broadway Database
- Beatrice Arthur at the Internet Movie Database
- Beatrice Arthur at TV.com
- Bea Arthur Interview with Archive of American Televison
- Playbill biography
| Awards | ||
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| 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 |
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Arthur, Beatrice |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Frankel, Bernie |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | actress, singer, comedian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 13, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
