Bea Arthur, 43, and Angela Lansbury, 40, on the first day of rehearsals for MAME in 1966 …..

What’s your issue? It’s them. At that age.

Lucy was originally intended to star but Gary talked her out of it.

R1: “What’s your issue?”

My issue? As I noted, it is that the picture and the description may not match. There is somebody on Data lounge who once saw these two having lunch at some restaurant in Los Angeles in the late 60s and has filed away in their brain that image. And they will trot it out anytime to knife a bitch in the back on here about being wrong about when and where that picture was taken.

And from your cunty and unfunny response, you might be that one ….

Said no one, ever.

Didn’t know that Bea was only three years older than Angela. Angela outlived all The Golden Girls.

Angela outlived the vast majority of people from her generation.

Was it a photo call or the actual first day of rehearsals? Because Angela Lansbury is impeccably turned out and that’s unusual even then.

I saw pictures of the first day of rehearsals for a play Paul Newman was in as an unknown and even the women were in jeans and button downs with pony tails. Maybe one wore a loose shift dress.

Maude fascinates me

My todger twitched!

Arthur looks like Tom Cruise in drag there.

Your todger twitched

When daddy pitched.

Your cooch, bewitched

Then scratched and itched

In that photo Maude/ Beatrice looks like she’s saying to Angela - God’ll get you for that Angela!

I'm also not getting why anyone would question it's them or why they'd find anything odd about the photo.

For a glamorous and expensive high-profile Broadway musical like MAME (the follow-up to Jerry Herman's huge smash hit HELLO DOLLY!), it wouldn't have been unusual for the press to be invited for an hour or so before the first reading began to take some photos. So, of course, Angela and Bea dressed appropriately. And on that first day there might not have been any dance rehearsals and more casual wear was not needed. Lots of Broadway musicals today still reserve a part of that first day to pose for the press.

Now, you might question why Bea doesn't look more glamorous, but I think if we could see the full length shot of what she's wearing, she wouldn't look much less formally dressed than Angela. And that point in her career, Bea's main claim to fame was playing Yente the Matchmaker in FIDDLER so it's not like anyone expected her to look like a big Broadway star. She wasn't a beauty and never sold herself that way. She was married to MAME's director Gene Saks, however.

R13 Christ on a cracker . Get a LIFE CAPS KWEEN.

R5, Angela died at age 96 and Betty at 99. She didn't outlive Betty.

Angela and Bea's Friendship - From Closer Magazine, March 3rd 2025.

"Bea's Arthur's former personal assistant will never forget the day she took him grocery shopping in Los Angeles. "It was me, Bea and Angela Lansbury." Dan Watt tells Closer. "She didn't tell me she was meeting Angela. I'm walking behind them and they're just like catching up on their day and grabbing food. I'm standing behind them going, 'Oh, please break into song in the aisle.'" The close friendship between the stars of The Golden Girls and Murder She Wrote began on the stage when they starred in the 1966 Broadway musical Mame. Angela played the bon vivant title character while Bea appeared as Vera Charles, her hard drinking best friend. "Angela was a class act and a real joy to work with," Bea said. "When I first met her I thought I was meeting this patrician, classically trained actor, but she has a mouth like a longshoreman. No kidding. She loved telling dirty limericks." Taking her cue from the title of the song they sang together in Mame's second act, Angela called Bea her "bosom buddy." The women loved to share a laugh. "She's told some of the most hilarious jokes I've ever heard," Angela said of Bea. "She's an original. There's nobody in the world like her."

Angela and Bea arrived on the Broadway stage from very different places. Born in London to an upper middle-class family, Angela called herself a "complete movie maniac" in her youth, longing to follow in her actress mother's footsteps. She began her drama training shortly after emigrating to the United States during World War II. At 19, she received her first Oscar nomination for her role in 1944's Gaslight. Brooklyn-born, Maryland-raised Bea, meanwhile, finished high school and enlisted in the Marines, where she served as a typist and a truck dispatcher during World War II. After her honorable discharge, she took classes to become a medical technician before switching to drama. They were rivals for the same role in Mame. Bea, whose then-husband Gene Saks was directing the show, auditioned. She ended up playing best friend Vera, which worked out well. Both she and Angela won Tony awards that year. After their time together on Broadway ended, the pair remained friends. Both would find a next chapter on the small screen in the 1980s, but ironically, they never appeared on each other's hit shows. Perhaps they just preferred to keep their long friendship out of the limelight. "We're comfortable with each other. We always have been," Angela said. "She became my greatest support, and I, hers."

-Louise A. Barile

They both look good.

I watched some stuff on Bea recently (Intimate Portrait, remember that?) and I never realized how hard it was for her to be second banana. Playing Vera got her Tony, but she wanted her own staring vehicle. She didn’t have to wait much longer until Maude.

Here she is calling Tallulah Bankhead a cunt in a show that aired at 8 pm lol.

Wow. They’re both so butch.

Of course it is. Are you blind, OP?

[quote] Was it a photo call or the actual first day of rehearsals? Because Angela Lansbury is impeccably turned out and that’s unusual even then.

Angela always turned out.

[quote] Angela died at age 96 and Betty at 99. She didn't outlive Betty.

Betty died in 2021, Angela 2022, you retard.

R21 99 is older than 96.

2+2=4

R17 During her 2002 Broadway show, she said she loved and worshipped Tallulah Bankhead.

R22, that’s not what that refers to. Betty outlived The Golden Girls because she died last. It had nothing to do with age.

Bea was a drunken liar. What else is new? She wouldn’t admit to her military service either. Probably because she got discarded due to an STD which left her unable to conceive children. She spoke about growing up in an area when women got abortions as routine. Bea wasn’t exactly careful. That’s why her sons are adopted. Her discharge papers say venereal disease.

Bea was a drunken liar. What else is new? She wouldn’t admit to her military service either. Probably because she got discharged due to an STD which left her unable to conceive children. She spoke about growing up in an area where women got abortions as routine. She had no idea it was controversial. Bea wasn’t exactly careful. That’s why her sons are adopted. Her discharge papers say venereal disease.

What a beautiful memento.

R25 is sadly correct. Bea could have been a trailblazer but her shame kept her from admitting she was a proud soldier and a sexual active woman.

She was from a different era but her shame is an embarrassment. Bea is a tragedy. Thankfully, her sons got her piece of the GG and are living their best lives.

Most people don’t know that the GG producers gave Bea a piece of the GG in exchange for staying for a couple more years.

This is beyond lucrative.

She owned part of the GG.

I’m sure she passed it to her kids, who are quietly enjoying the spoils of their mother’s efforts.

Most unflattering of Bea.

Love Bea but she had so many issues.

Angelica Huston looked like Bea’s daughter but was hailed as a great beauty while Bea was assailed as ugly.

It’s all about PR.

We miss you, Bea.

[quote] Most unflattering of Bea.—I thought it was a man

R30 Well, after all, Maude WAS a top.

It is weird that people in their 40s looked like they were in their 60s back then.

Bea’s small percentage of the Golden Girls was for the last season when they were desperate for her to stay on. They never actually paid her until she got her lawyers onto them, then they quickly settled.

What happens when an actor dies, do their royalties, residues etc go to their next of kin/ estate?

Uh, both of them look to be about 40 or so in that photo. Even late 30s. Not the slightest big like they are in their 60s.

People dressed more formally back then.

Now, we all dress like teenaged slobs.

Holy shit! They're my age right there?

What the fuck happened to people of that generation that they looked ready to knit socks and keel over and die before 50?

R35, apparently "the greatest generation" meant the oldest-looking motherfuckers alive.

They honestly look like 65-year-old fraus from this era.

[quote] It is weird that people in their 40s looked like they were in their 60s back then.

They also took themselves very fucking seriously back then, too. As if everything about them was so profound and mature.