RoseNylund
06-03-2003, 12:06 AM
There is a new article on www.tvguide.com about the new retrospective and an interview with Rue McClanahan. They ask:
TV Guide Online: How sad Estelle Getty — aka sassy granny Sophia Petrillo — couldn't do the special. We hear she's very ill.
Rue: It's really sad that we couldn't have Estelle there. She doesn't know us, or people that she knew. After Betty [White] visited her, Estelle commented, 'That was a nice woman' — as if it was someone she hadn't known.
TVGO: What's her condition?
Rue: Estelle has what Dudley Moore had. [Moore died of complications from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) last year.] It's a nerve deterioration in the brain. At least, that's the diagnosis now. They've misdiagnosed her twice. First, they diagnosed her with Parkinson's, then Alzheimer's; now, they say it's neither.
TVGO: Does the cast still see each other regularly?
Rue: We were not social companions, even while we were doing the show. Everybody had their own set of friends, but we were seeing so much of each other [at work] anyway! I hadn't seen Bea [Arthur] since her one-woman show on Broadway a year ago. We all just got to say hi for this, and it was really nice.
TVGO: Out of 180 Golden Girls episodes, what's your favorite?
Rue: The one where I get the word "lesbian" mixed up with "Lebanese." And the one where Rose dates a midget, and I come out of the kitchen with an hors d'oeuvre tray, and say, 'Shrimp anyone?' I remember shooting it and thinking, 'This isn't that funny a line.' But that's what people remember!
TVGO: We seem to recall the girls having a gay cook. Whatever happened to him?
Rue: Coco (Charles Levin) was only in the pilot. After the show got picked up, I felt bad for the actor. They could either have the cook in the kitchen or the mother [Sophia], but they didn't need both. So they decided to make it four women; they even edited the pilot to cut out scenes, so he was barely in it anymore.
TVGO: Well, 1985 was pre-Will & Grace. Did someone nix Coco because...
Rue: ...Of the fact that he was gay? I don't think that was it. They just decided it would be too cumbersome to have five characters running every week.
TVGO: Maybe you didn't need a cook to serve the cheesecake anyway.
Rue: (Moans) That cheesecake. It was hard to resist. You know what we'd do? I'd move the fork toward my mouth — and just as the camera's cutting to someone else's line, I'd get rid of the cheesecake under the table. Then, they'd cut back to me, pretending to chew. We couldn't have eaten all that cheesecake and not gotten 50 lbs overweight each! The crew ate it after the show.
TVGO: Blanche needed to keep her figure! She bedded many men, for a lady of a certain age.
Rue: I think it's only young people who think that older people don't have sexual lives. This was just true to life. I've heard from Midwestern ladies who say, 'You allowed me to be the sexual person I am and dress the way I want to. Because they loved the way Blanche dressed. They begged me to sell my "A Touch of Rue" clothing line on QVC.
TVGO: You always looked glam.
Rue: (Laughs) The thing I noticed was, we were always crying poor. Dorothy was a part-time school teacher and we were fixing our own plumbing — and yet we never wore the same thing twice! I had five silky costumes in each show
TV Guide Online: How sad Estelle Getty — aka sassy granny Sophia Petrillo — couldn't do the special. We hear she's very ill.
Rue: It's really sad that we couldn't have Estelle there. She doesn't know us, or people that she knew. After Betty [White] visited her, Estelle commented, 'That was a nice woman' — as if it was someone she hadn't known.
TVGO: What's her condition?
Rue: Estelle has what Dudley Moore had. [Moore died of complications from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) last year.] It's a nerve deterioration in the brain. At least, that's the diagnosis now. They've misdiagnosed her twice. First, they diagnosed her with Parkinson's, then Alzheimer's; now, they say it's neither.
TVGO: Does the cast still see each other regularly?
Rue: We were not social companions, even while we were doing the show. Everybody had their own set of friends, but we were seeing so much of each other [at work] anyway! I hadn't seen Bea [Arthur] since her one-woman show on Broadway a year ago. We all just got to say hi for this, and it was really nice.
TVGO: Out of 180 Golden Girls episodes, what's your favorite?
Rue: The one where I get the word "lesbian" mixed up with "Lebanese." And the one where Rose dates a midget, and I come out of the kitchen with an hors d'oeuvre tray, and say, 'Shrimp anyone?' I remember shooting it and thinking, 'This isn't that funny a line.' But that's what people remember!
TVGO: We seem to recall the girls having a gay cook. Whatever happened to him?
Rue: Coco (Charles Levin) was only in the pilot. After the show got picked up, I felt bad for the actor. They could either have the cook in the kitchen or the mother [Sophia], but they didn't need both. So they decided to make it four women; they even edited the pilot to cut out scenes, so he was barely in it anymore.
TVGO: Well, 1985 was pre-Will & Grace. Did someone nix Coco because...
Rue: ...Of the fact that he was gay? I don't think that was it. They just decided it would be too cumbersome to have five characters running every week.
TVGO: Maybe you didn't need a cook to serve the cheesecake anyway.
Rue: (Moans) That cheesecake. It was hard to resist. You know what we'd do? I'd move the fork toward my mouth — and just as the camera's cutting to someone else's line, I'd get rid of the cheesecake under the table. Then, they'd cut back to me, pretending to chew. We couldn't have eaten all that cheesecake and not gotten 50 lbs overweight each! The crew ate it after the show.
TVGO: Blanche needed to keep her figure! She bedded many men, for a lady of a certain age.
Rue: I think it's only young people who think that older people don't have sexual lives. This was just true to life. I've heard from Midwestern ladies who say, 'You allowed me to be the sexual person I am and dress the way I want to. Because they loved the way Blanche dressed. They begged me to sell my "A Touch of Rue" clothing line on QVC.
TVGO: You always looked glam.
Rue: (Laughs) The thing I noticed was, we were always crying poor. Dorothy was a part-time school teacher and we were fixing our own plumbing — and yet we never wore the same thing twice! I had five silky costumes in each show