Bea Arthur

At 86 years old, Bea Arthur has this physical status:

Career

Beatrice Arthur studied at The New School's Dramatic Workshop in New York City with German director Erwin Piscator, beginning in 1947.

Arthur began her acting career at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in the late 1940s as a member of an off-Broadway theater company. Lucy Brown appeared onstage in Marc Blitzstein's English-language translation of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, Nadine Fesser in the 1957 premiere of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, Yente Fesser.

Arthur auditioned for the role in the musical Mame, which her husband Gene Saks was supposed to direct, but Angela Lansbury took the lead instead. Arthur accepted Vera Charles' support role, winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical the same year. She played her role in the 1974 film version opposite Lucille Ball. She appeared in Woody Allen's The Floating Light Bulb in 1981.

In Gaetano Donizetti's La fille du régiment, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1994 portraying the Duchess of Krakenthorp. She appeared in Bermuda Avenue Triangle in Los Angeles in 1995, opposite Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna.

Arthur Lear was invited by Norman Lear to guest star on his sitcom All in the Family in 1971 as Maude Findlay, Edith Bunker's cousin. Maude, a vocal liberal feminist, was considered the antithesis to the caricatured reactionary Archie Bunker, who characterized her as a "New Deal loveratic." Arthur's tart role on All in the Family delighted viewers, as well as CBS executives who later recall asking, "Who is this girl?" "Let's make her own series," says the author.

Maude is the protagonist of Maude's second appearance in All in the Family. With her fourth husband Walter (Bill Macy) and divorced daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau), she and her fourth husband Walter (Bill Macy) appeared in Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, 1970. Arthur's role in the film earned her multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards, including an Emmy Award in 1977 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Arthur is the patron of the women's liberation movement in Maude's history.

The series addressed important socioeconomic and political issues of a sitcom, including the Vietnam War, the Nixon Administration, Maude's search for a congressional seat, divorce, cocaine use, alcoholism, nervous breakdown, women's lib, abortion, and misogyny. "Maude's Dilemma," a two-part series on which Maude's character wrestles with a late-life pregnancy, leading to an abortion. Even though abortion had been legal in New York State since 1970, as well as in California after the state's 1969 on-demand decision, it was still unlawful in several other jurisdictions of the country, and, as such, sparked controversy. As a result, hundreds of network affiliates have refused to air the episode, instead replacing it with 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, the flak had been reduced, and the stations that had refused to air the episode after it had been rerun for the first time were revived for broadcast. As a result, a whopping 65 million viewers watched the two-episode arc on either first run or later this summer. The episode first aired two months before the US Supreme Court ordered the procedure nationally in the Roe vs. Wade case in January 1973.

Arthur decided not to return to the series in 1978, during the show's sixth season. In the Mos Eisley cantina's later this year, she appeared in Star Wars Holiday Special, in which she had a song and dance routine. On January 19, 1980, she hosted The Beatrice Arthur Special on CBS, which paired the actor with Rock Hudson, Melba Moore, and Wayland Flowers and Madame.

Arthur in the short-lived 1983 sitcom Amanda's (an extension of the British series Fawlty Towers) returned to television. With just 10 episodes out of 13 recorded, the program was dissatisfied.

Arthur was a child actor and substitute teacher in The Golden Girls, a 1965 film starring Dorothy Zbornak, a divorced mother and substitute teacher living in a Miami, Florida home owned by widow Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan). Rose Nylund (Betty White) and Dorothy's Sicilian mother, Sophia Petrillo, were among her roommates (Estelle Getty). In real life, Getty was actually a year younger than Arthur. Betty White was initially cast as the man-hungry Blanche, and Rue McClanahan (who had previously co-starred with Arthur in Maude) was cast as the naive Rose. Arthur refused to be in a show that was mainly about Maude and Vivian life with Sue Ann Nivens. Arthur reconsidered after White and McClanahan switched roles. The series was a hit, and it remained a top-ten rating fixture for six of its seven seasons. Arthur's appearances earned multiple Emmy nominations over the course of the series and an Emmy Award in 1988. Arthur retired from television after seven years, and it was relaunched as The Golden Palace in 1992, where the other three actresses reprised their roles, with Cheech Marin as the show's new foil. Arthur made a guest appearance in a two-part episode, but the new series only lasted one season.

Arthur, who had otherwise refused to be seen in advertising, turned down a lucrative bid from Shoppers Drug Mart to be their commercial spokeswoman on the condition that the commercials would never be seen in the United States. Arthur spent seven years in the role, before returning to Toronto for commercial tapings.

Arthur appeared in films for the first time, reprising her stage role as Vera Charles in the 1974 film adaptation of Mame opposite Lucille Ball. In Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), she portrayed overbearing mother Bea Vecchio, and in Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I (1981), she appeared as a Roman unemployment clerk. Beverly Makeshift appeared in the 1995 American film For Better or Worse.

Arthur left The Golden Girls, appearing on television shows and arranging and touring in her one-woman exhibition, alternately named An Evening with Bea Arthur and And Then Bea. In the Emmy-nominated 2001 episode "Amazon Women in the Mood," she appeared as the voice of the feminist "Femputer" who ruled a race of giant Amazonian women. Mrs. White, one of Dewey's babysitters who was a strict disciplinarian, appeared in a first-season episode of Malcolm in the Middle. For her appearance in a Comedy Series, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress. On Curb Your Enthusiasm, she appeared as Larry David's mother.

Bea Arthur on Broadway, a collection of stories and songs based on her life and career, she returned to Broadway in 2002. The show was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event by Tony Green.

Arthur performed in stage and television tributes for Jerry Herman, Bob Hope, Ellen DeGeneres, in addition to appearing in shows focusing on her own work. She appeared in Richard Barone's "There Will Be Another Spring: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee" at the Hollywood Bowl in 2004, performing "Johnny Guitar" and "The Shining Sea" in Richard Barone's "There'll Be Another Spring." She appeared in Pamela Anderson's Comedy Central roast in 2005, where she recited sexually explicit passages from Anderson's book Star Struck in a deadpan style.

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