“The Golden Girls” is widely considered a groundbreaking series for showcasing the lives and friendships of women in their 50s and 60s at a time when older women were rarely central characters on TV.
The show, which ran for seven seasons from 1985 to 1992, told the comical tale of four single women living together in Miami. Starring Betty White, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, “The Golden Girls” became an instant hit, drawing more than 21 million viewers when it premiered on Sept. 14, 1985. In addition to breaking stereotypes around aging, the show also pushed boundaries with its sometimes risqué humor, which was considered daring for primetime in the 1980s.
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As “The Golden Girls” celebrates its 40th anniversary, TV writer and “The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore” author Stan Zimmerman, who worked on the show during its Emmy Award-winning first season, recalled how he was amazed that some of the sitcom’s racier jokes made it past the censors.
“I couldn’t believe what we got away with on the show,” Zimmerman told Fox News Digital.
“I think once you have a hit, you get away with a lot more,” he continued. “I’ve been on some shows that have not been as successful, and so I think the networks are much more nervous not to turn anybody off. We got away with a lot more.”
“I think also because people thought, ‘Oh, they’re just these old ladies. They can say anything. They seem so harmless.'”
Zimmerman remembered being stunned when one particular line in the season one episode “Adult Education” made it on air and later became iconic.
The line was delivered by McClanahan’s Blanche Devereaux after she had been sexually harassed by her professor while taking a psychology night class at a local university. In the episode, Blanche’s professor offers to give her a passing grade in exchange for sleeping with him.
During the episode’s climax, Blanche tells her professor that she will not sleep with him and uses a double entendre when she declares that she believes she studied hard enough to earn an A in the course anyway.
“Blanche says to her teacher, ‘You can kiss my A.’ And I’m like, that’ll never go. It’ll get flagged by the censors,” Zimmerman recalled. “And it’s in the show. It’s on T-shirts now.”
After his stint on “The Golden Girls,” Zimmerman went on to write for other hit comedy shows including “Roseanne” and “Gilmore Girls.” He also co-wrote the 1996 feature film “A Very Brady Sequel” and has written and directed plays including “Meet & Greet,” “Knife to the Heart,” “Have a Good One” and “Yes Virginia.” Zimmerman recently directed the Off-Broadway run of the comedy show “Hyprov: Improv Under Hypnosis.”
On September 7, Zimmerman’s suicide awareness play “Right Before I Go” began its three-week Off-Broadway run at The Tank in New York.
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During his interview with Fox News Digital, Zimmerman reflected on the experience of working in “The Golden Girls” writers’ room during the early years of his career, admitting that he felt some trepidation while writing jokes for the star-studded cast.
“We knew this wasn’t just some ordinary show and I think there was also pressure from the producers,” he recalled. “We can’t just give them ordinary jokes. We got to give them the best of the best because they were the best of the best.”
Zimmerman also weighed in on the long-rumored feud between White and Arthur. Despite playing close pals in “Golden Girls,” the actresses reportedly shared a less friendly off-screen relationship.
During a panel discussion in June, former “Golden Girls” writers, producers and staff members made revelations about the duo’s fraught dynamic.
“When that red light was on [and the show was filming], there were no more professional people than those women, but when the red light was off, those two couldn’t warm up to each other if they were cremated together,” co-producer Marsha Posner Williams joked, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Williams claimed that Arthur complained to her about White off-camera and often referred to her co-star as a “c—.” During a 2022 appearance on “The Originals” podcast, Thurm previously claimed that Arthur used the same language when speaking about White in front of him.
“Literally Bea Arthur, who I cast in something else later on, just said, ‘Oh, she’s a f—ing c—,’ using that word,” Thurm explained. “… She called her the c-word. I mean, I heard that with my own ears. And by the way, so did Rue McClanahan. Rue McClanahan said it to me in [the restaurant] Joe Allen’s; Bea Arthur [when she was] on the set of ‘Beggars and Choosers.’”
Thurm’s publicist clarified to Fox News Digital at the time that McClanahan did not use the c-word to describe White, but instead claimed the actress said that White “could be a b—-” during an outing at Joe Allen’s.
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For his part, Zimmerman told Fox News Digital that he never heard Arthur call White a “c—,” though he noted that he had recently been told that there was “some tension” between the actresses.
“But they were such professionals, they never let it get in the way of their work,” he said. “The show was the most important thing.”
“And you have to remember, I was there for season one, so people were on their best behavior,” he continued. “People were also very excited in season one because back then, nobody thought a show about older women would be a success in that we’d be talking about it 40 years later.”
“So there was just this excitement on set, in the writers room and at the table reads that we would have every Monday. ‘Oh my God, people are really liking the show,’” Zimmerman added. “And then no, they’re not just liking it, they’re loving it. They’re becoming obsessed with it. They couldn’t get enough of those characters.”
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Zimmerman speculated that Arthur and White may have clashed due to their different acting backgrounds. Before becoming a household name after starring in the hit sitcom “Maude,” Arthur was known for her Tony Award-winning work on Broadway. Meanwhile, White rose to fame as a comedy legend and sitcom star.
“It happens on any job,” Zimmerman said. “You just have different working ethics. Bea Arthur came from the stage, so she would want to stay in character between takes. Betty White, once they yelled cut, she would be making jokes and going up to the studio audience. And I don’t think Bea quite liked that.”
In “The Golden Girls,” White starred as Rose, a gentle but dim Midwestern widow while Arthur played Dorothy Zbornak, a sarcastic but caring substitute teacher.
Getty portrayed the cantankerous but charming matriarch Sophia Petrillo, the mother of Arthur’s character, and McClanahan played the flirtatious Southern belle Blanche.
After “The Golden Girls” ended, White, McClanahan and Getty reprised their roles in the spin-off “The Golden Palace,” but the show was canceled after one season.
In 2008, Getty died at age 84 from Lewy body dementia. Arthur passed away from lung cancer in 2009 at the age of 86. McClanahan died in 2010 at age 76 after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. In 2021, White died at age 99 after suffering a stroke.
During a 2011 interview with the Village Voice, White shared her own take on the reason behind Arthur’s animosity toward her.
“Bea had a reserve,” White said. “She was not that fond of me.”
“She found me a pain in the neck sometimes,” the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” alum added. “It was my positive attitude — and that made Bea mad sometimes.
“Sometimes if I was happy, she’d be furious!”
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Despite any off-screen tensions that may have existed between Arthur and White, Zimmerman told Fox News Digital that he believes the show’s lasting message is one of unity.
“I think one of the lessons we can get from ‘Golden Girls’ 40 years later is that there’s so many people in different corners of this world with different viewpoints that we have to now, I think, find where we can connect, where we can find that table where we can all sit and have cheesecake no matter what our political views are or feelings about the world,” he said.
“And I feel like that’s the next step as we evolve as a country, is to just find those times where we have each other’s back like those ‘Golden Girls’ have,” Zimmerman added.
