The REAL reason why Bea Arthur left the Golden Girls

Tell us so we don't have to watch a stupid YouTube video, OP. We aren't all Zoomers who live off YouTube.

Was it the big penis jokes?

This guy is quite the MARY!

She thought the writing was going to shit and the writers were making fun of how big and ugly she was.

She thought the writing was going to shit and the writers were making fun of how big and ugly she was.

Just read what R4 said and skip the video. The queen takes 5 minutes to say what could be said in 15 seconds.

His voice and delivery are a great cure for insomnia.

I always wondered if she was OK with all the mean lines about her. In the beginning it could be considered light jabs, but later on they were just flat out calling her a big mean ugly lumberjack that no sane man could ever want. She wasn't even that tall at 5'9", but they acted like she was 6'5".

Was she really only 5’9” r8? My, I too always thought she must be 6’ plus. Miss her!

With hair, she was 6'.

....

He really milks every drop he can out of the 30-year-old drama.

For those who want more:

"Here are my memories of Adrienne Barbeau, star of TV's Maude as well as legendary horror scream queen in films like The Fog and Creepshow. This video also provides an update on what has happened with this wonderful lady since the late 70s and early 80s."

R11, that's hilarious!

So much better than the tiresome kween on the youtube.

I remember Bea would often appear on those celebrity roasts and they said things about her that was about 100 times worst than what was said about her on the Golden Girls. I suspect the insults were payback for her complaining about the writing to didn’t call compare to what she was used to n Maude they all got insulted but insulting somene’s Looks is prt low. . Still. I Think Bea is an attractive woman. Certainly better looking than she as on Maude.

Fess Parker in drag

She left because Betty White started locklng her dressing room door and she couldn't sneak in and take a dump on the floor anymore.

The fun was gone.

If there were such bad feelings why did Dorothy get such a beautiful ending? Anyway, like Soap and Empty Nest The writing did go down hill. Something that tended to happen with that production team. Also, maybe she just wanted to stop.

I remember watching the Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe. I believe Bea was sitting with Dr. Ruth. Jeff Ross was on stage talking about Sandra Bernhard. "Sandra Bernhard? I wouldn't fuck her with Bea Arthur's dick!!"

^^ You call marrying an incontinent Leslie Nielsen while wearing a nightmarish wedding dress a beautiful ending?

But really she got a beautiful send off and there were episodes like Journey to the Center of Attention that were more like a love note to Dorothy. I’m sure she lobbied for those and she deserved them.

I honestly think she had just checked out and wanted to end the show with people still wanting more. That was her MO with Maude too. Betty, bless her, will be on board with running any show into the ground because she always just wants to work. Two totally different types.

And the ratings decline by and large was due to the time change — after 6 seasons of being on at Sat at 9pm that makes a difference. And the last thing GG is is an 8pm show.

I happen to LOVE Season 7.

I know she served in WWII. Was she a spy or am I confusing her with Julia Child? God knows they looked enough alike.

^^She drove a truck in Maryland.

Bea got the best episodes. The Barbara Thorndye one, and the two part one she gets sick and the one when she gets more attention than Blanche.

She ran off and joined the circus, Rose.

R14, are you illiterate?

Holy fuck!

"Femputer demands to know, 'why are there men on her planet?'"

After the first minute of that video I stopped caring. BORING.

Several years ago, the surviving members of the cast of Empty Nest (a Golden Girls spin-off) did a series of interviews, and almost all of them talked about working with, or running into, Bea Arthur and they are funny stories. Park Overall HATED Bea and says that when Bea made an apperance on Empty Nest, Bea freaked out because Dinah Manoff was chewing gum during a rehearsal. Bea demanded Dinah spit it out, but she refused and Bea grabbed Park (Park alleges she was bruised because Bea grabbed her really hard) and told her to do something about it but Park refused and Bea walked off the set and refused to come back until tape day. Park said she never had a single pleasant dealing with Bea, but all the other ladies were great. Dinah confirmed this story and while more polite basically implied Bea was difficult. David Leisure also talked about Bea drinking heavily and that she hit on him once when she was drunk after a taping of Golden Girls.

R28, that's some good tea! I always liked 'Empty Nest'. Do you remember its spin-off, 'Nurses'? It was cute, but was no 'Empty Nest'.

R28 WTF that’s insane??!? It’s fucking gum, you’d think Bea caught her doing lines of blow off of Kristy McNichol’s twat!

So I guess Rue was telling the truth about that in her book after all — she had a thing with gum and backwards baseball caps.

God, I hated Empty Nest, especially Park Overall and David Leisure.

[quote] and backwards baseball caps.

So do I. It looks ridiculous. And they love to wear them in gay porn. To convey “masculinity” I guess. But it just looks douchey.

Park Overall and David Leisure were the only good parts of Empty Nest!

I thought she left because she didn't like the rest of the cast and her patience wore out.

Anyway, you couldn't tell on screen - they all had great chemistry together.

R32 that’s great. But if you fire people and walk off sets for that reason, then you’re a total entitled asshole, period.

R28 I can't find that online. I would love to see it.

R36 Here's a link to Park Overall's interview the others are listed on the heading "Return to the Nest with the Cast and Crew." This interviews appear to have been conducted as part of a 25th anniversary tribute to the show back in 2013. David Leisure and Park Overall also talk about the Bea/Betty thing...basically Bea hated Betty's guts...and Betty out of frustration just started pushing Bea's buttons on purpose.

Empty Nest was no where near the same level of The Golden Girls and I think it's largely forgotten now. The early seasons had their moments, but the show was plagued by a behind the scenes issues (apparently the writers room doors was constantly revolving) and after Kristy McNichol left, the show never really recovered. The final two seasons of the show were terrible. The brought in Marsha Warfield to play a new doctor but she wasn't used properly, and they also brought back Estelle Getty as Sophia who had absolutely nothing to do. She would literally walk in for one scene (clearly reading cue cards) deliver a punch line and then leave.

OP trying to push his annoying ass YouTube channel.

I thought it had to do with syphilis. Army records from WW2 show that Ms Arthur contracted syphilis.

If she did get it treated it may have fried her brain in later years forcing her off the show.

R39 We don't know if she got syphilis, her military record simply states she got VD. Odds are it was probably gonorrhea. In the 1940s, this would have knocked you down for several weeks and probably left her unable to have children.

R37 For the most part that's what Estelle did on the GG's. And yet she was still the funniest one on the show.

R41 It was far worse on Empty Nest. She would literally have one scene in every episode and sadly at this point, it was clear Estelle was in mental decline because you could see her reading the cue cards off camera. I think they brought her character in an attempt to boost ratings. Every episode of Empty Nest is on YouTube.

The dialog on The Golden Girls changed in season 7. Sophias lines were cruel toward Dorothy. No wonder she got fed up. Bea Arthur took the job seriously. Can’t fault her for that.

Chewing gum while rehearsing (or on stage)? I'd have slapped her into next Tuesday. Totally unprofessional.

It's sad with all her success Bea was such a miserable bitch.

I think Bea probably thought that even though this would be an ensemble show, she would still be the "power player" of it. Bea was the only one of the group to star in her own hit series. Rue and Betty were best known as ensemble players and this was Estelle's big break. People forget how huge Maude was in the 70's. Bea was up there with Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett in terms of popularity and prestige. It had to have been a bit of a comedown to have the attention taken away from her in the first year as Betty won the Emmy and Estelle became the breakout star. It wasn't her show, and as good as the writing was, it probably felt like a bit of a comedown.

She did say in another interview that she would have loved doing a long run of Amanda's had they gotten the right people behind it.

I might remember wrongly but wasn’t it first centered around Dorothy with her two friends and a gay cook while her mother and ex would pay a visit every now and then? Then Sophia became instant audience fave and gay cook was written out and two other girls more into starring roles.

R46 it’s a shame because Dorothy was so much of a better character. I think the fact that Bea was finally playing with equals (including Stan, btw) brought out the best in her as a comedic actress.

Too bad she never saw it that way.

R46 Yup! Rue talked about this both in her autobiography and in interviews. Bea didn't like the ensemble nature of the show, and had a hard time adjusting to not being 'the' star. That being said, Bea never went out of her way to act like she was the star, and the ladies allegedly always gave her final say on things as kind of an acknowledgement of her status. Jim Colucci, who has written two books about the Golden Girls and interviewed Bea a couple times, has stated that she was a little bitter than it was Golden Girls she was more remembered for rather than Maude. She was more proud of Maude (understandably) than she was of Golden Girls. According to Rue, Bea was also a bit bruised that she was the last of the ladies to win an Emmy and the fact that Betty won first never sat well with Bea.