Was Rue McClanahan ever pretty?

Agreed. Does anyone have a youthful picture of her?

What if Bea Arthur had played Blanche?

I always thought Rue was the pretty one.

Very pretty.

^^ Wow! A stunner. Here's a young Betty White for comparison.

I'm missing the connection between southern belles and flat faces, OP. Rue was perfectly cast. Blanche was never supposed to be ravishingly beautiful. Her delusion that she was beyond compare was her overwhelming comic conceit, often and hilariously ridiculed by the other characters. That she was so supemely self-confident made her a joy to watch, and lent possibility to the fact that many men may have found her attractive because of it. It's an oft-played sitcome archetype. Look at Karen from "Will and Grace", Suzanne from "Designing Women" or even Flo from "Alice".

Well, an important part of the Blanche jokes was that she was delusional about her looks and her age. If the actress playing the role had actually been pretty, the jokes wouldn't have made sense. Watch the show and see how every time Blanche talks about how beautiful she is, it's clear that it's meant to be funny and the audience responds accordingly. Blanche was supposed to be one of those people who believe themselves to be beautiful and act that way and then others are convinced by their self confidence.

I saw a nude shot of Betty White when she was young and she a great body.

Surprised no one has yet mentioned the opening sentence of GONE WITH THE WIND: "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were."

Oh, but Vivien Leigh sure was.

Rue was not pretty in a conventional way at any age, but her distinctive features must have gotten her noticed when she was young.

Rue was the prettiest of the 3. Betty, who I'm sure most people here know was originally offered the Blanche role, wouldn't have worked at all. Sure she played a whore on MTM but no one thought she was a sexy whore, they often made fun of her middle-aged lack of sex appeal. "She's more like the woman you leave, not the woman you have the affair with" was the joke. 10 yrs later on Golden Girls she really would've looked pathetic throwing herself at every man who crossed her path.

But Rue herself was getting too long in the tooth for the role by the time they moved the show to the Golden Palace. She started to remind me of Dixie Wetsworth from the Cabana Chat skit on MadTV.

No r7, those jokes were about how Rue was afraid to acknowledge her sex-appeal was fading. She was pretty and sexy for her age, but she was still clinging to a self-image of herself as she was in her prime. Her vanity wasn't misplaced as much as it had passed its sell-by date.

I thought Rue was the prettiest and she had a terrific body, but strangely, I thought Bea was much more attractive as the show went on and her hair got longer. Betty seemed to age a lot during the last season of the show, I think it was too much for her. Clip of a young Rue shaking her ass:

R13, I'm with R6 and R7.

It's much more funny if she isn't, and never was that hot. True beauty that has faded is usually just sad.

The whole point of the Blanche character is that you laugh at her wondering whether she's getting all these guys because of her self-confidence or just because she's so easy.

On a physical level, Rue and Blanche, by necessity, were the same person. And photos of Rue in her youth show her to have been a very sexy woman. So that is Blanche's background too, she was once very sexy.

I'm blown away by the pictures and videos (checked out young Estelle and Bea, too). That dancing video is hilarious, how random. I, too, think it was more so a matter of her good looks, though not conventional, having faded somewhat and her not realizing it.

Rue had an affair with "Midnight Express" actor Brad Davis when they appeared in a play together.

Speaking of Rue, as we seem to be doing here, she had a bi-pass surgery and then a stroke as a complication of it, within the last year. But she's said to be recovering and has regained her speech. She's also reportedly signed to resume her career, but I can't remember if it's a movie or TV series. At present, her last acting appearance was in the LOGO series Sordid Lives in 2008. Which was quite good but canceled because it was too expensive for the fledgling network.

R7 gets it. One of the (several) reasons I dislike the last couple of seasons of TGG is that Rue actually started looking better and better and thinner and younger and the ironic humor of her character went out the window and she became a pretty good looking woman who was a bitch instead of a delusional, chunky, but striking, woman whose remarks were preposterously funny! Comparing herself to Julie Newmar, Christie Brinkley and Susan Anton when she's NOTHING like them is funny. Trimming down and glamming up took that away.

Yes Rue looked good, as she had to, to be believable as someone who could attract dozens of men to sleep with her. But at the same time she was middle-aged and far from stunning compared to a sexy woman in her prime. So the insult humor worked too.

She played a nanny on Another World 'round about 1970. I was just a kid then, but she seemed much older and dumpier than the woman she was terrorizing, Beverly Penberthy's Pat Randolph.

Some insight to Ms. M.

If you go back and watch episodes of Maude, both Rue and Bea look much older and much more harsh in Maude, nearly twenty years earlier.

OK, she was very hot squad on that clip posted above r14. It's a triumph over a pretty but plain face.

Betty clutching a massive phallic symbol at r5 is beautiful and dimpled and just ducky but I can't imagine her going down on it later.

When she won her Emmy she said that she was told she'd never make it show business because she was unphotogenic (she pronounced it "unphotogeenic") and I think I understand why. If you watch her early appearances on Maude, a show that was taped rather than filmed, you can see that her skin was very pockmarked.

OP, flat faces suck better cock

this thread wounds

Rue looked terrific during the last season of GG.

That second season eggshell haircut, however, was incredibly unflattering.

Bea was very hot during the fifth season, when they gave her that beautiful long hair that was nicely done.

My Mom wasn't superpretty but guys were chasing after her like you wouldn't believe it.

You don't have to be "pretty" to be hot.

R14, that video is hilarious. She kind of looks like Joan Crawford there. I wonder if that resemblance helped at the time?

She was in the gay early 70's film "Some of My Best Friends Are", starring Gil Gerard from Buck Rogers. She played a prostitute that hung out at the gay bar all the time and annoyed everyone.

R14's YT link is a clip from "Hollywood After Dark", a bad B-movie where she plays a club dancer, but in that scene she's not actually supposed to be seducing anyone. The YT poster who calls it "Rue's Seduction" is being disingenuous for the sake of comedy.

Pat had NOTHING to worry about.

What did you think of Rue's role in "Mama's Family"?

Love the ass shaking clip at R14! I think she looks like Sharon stone there. Then again, I don't have my glasses on, so I could be wrong.

I never thought she was strange looking, but it was clear she wasn't as pretty as she thought she was on the Golden Girls. I just took that to be part of the character. Blanche was clearly full of herself, so it made sense she would have an inflated opinion of her attractiveness.

She was attractive enough to carry it off, and her self-confidence made it believable.

Besides, none of the old goats the women dated were any great prizes themselves.

R35, it was obvious Rue was struggling on "Mama's Family". Fran was a mousy spinster whose bitterness (I suppose) was meant to make Mama look more balanced in comparison.

It didn't work. The character didn't have a clear point of view or fit any comedic archetype. It didn't help that she looked far too young to be Mama's sister or to be the "aunt" to Carol Burnett and Betty White.

But she blossomed, of course, on GG.

I've been a fan of Rue McClanahan's since her first off-Broadway musical, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".

In that long forgotten show, McClannahan immediately staked her claim to being a "new career to follow", despite her role being small, and most of her on-stage moments shared with the incomparable Cathryn Damon. (In fact, McClanahan can be heard with Damon on the show's cast recording as one of the "Two Little Pussycats"). She was not only pretty, she had the uncommon talent of being similtaneously touching, sexy and hilarious. The show was itself not particularly well received, but both Damon and McClanahan were lauded by the New York critics for their performances.

Although cast as a standby for two roles in Broadway's The Best Laid Plans", the show's three performance run did little for the young actress' than add a Broadway credit for the non-performance to her resume. McClanahan was next seen off-Broadway in the unfortunate one-act "Big Man". She, personally, was well reviewed for her stellar performance of a thankless role. In terms of her career, however, "Big Man" led directly to her being cast as Lady MacBird in the controversial and long-running off-Broadway "MacBird".

McClanahan finally appeared for the first time on Broadway as Sally in "Jimmy Shine"

She next was A.R. Gurney's choice for his two character, one-act play "Golden Fleece", presented, along with "The David Show", as "Tonight In Living Color".

Despite a short run, McClanahan received the 1970 Distinguished Performance Obie Award as Faye Precious in the musical "Who's Sorry Now?".

Soon after, she was seen in well received off-Broadway revivals, as Mrs. Allen in "Dark of the Moon", then as a particularly moving Caitlin in "Dylan". In between, McClanahan understudied Brenda Vaccaro in the best forgotten Broadway one-performance comedy, "Father's Day". After "Dylan" she returned to Broadway as the replacement Harriet in "Sticks and Bones".

McClanahan then took one of the tile roles (Crystal) in "Crystal and Fox" off-Broadway. She found herself, once again, giving an outstanding performance in an underwhelming production. Soon thereafter, returning to Broadway, McClanahan replaced Tammy Grimes as Hannah, Diana and Gert in California Suite".

The rest, as they say, is history. McClanahan has, since her "overnight success" on TV, to date appeared off-Broadway as Terry in "After Play" and in "The Vagina Monologues", as well as on Broadway as the Countess de Lage in a revival of "The Women", and as a replacement Madame Morrible in "Wicked".

And now she's dead.

DAMN OP, ARE YOU THE GRIM REAPER?????? i'm so sad! RIP, RUE!

Are you happy now, bitch OP? You done gone give her a stroke! Bitch!

Very pretty.

RIP

I hope she rests in peace. She gave her whole life to entertain us, R41. Can't you spare one moment of yours to show respect for her?

Oh dear....

Rue was a dear, dear friend of mine, and her nurse has informed me that Rue had been feeling down and logged onto Datalounge hoping for a pick-me-up from some supportive comments from "her gays". Instead, she read the nasty comments on this thread, and immediately had a stroke and died. I hope you're happy, OP - you murdered her!!

"I'm missing the connection between southern belles and flat faces"

RHINOPLASTY, in Rue's case, not a good one.

Is R46 for real?

RIP, Rue. Betty is the last Golden Girl left...

She looked like a pug.

Her attitude made her pretty.

you guys REALLY missed the point of the character completely. She was vain, narcissistic, and EASY. You see the guys who played her lovers on the show? Most of them were dogs. She was a slut- you don't have to be pretty to be a slut. Isn't that true Anne Coulter?

R54, at least a quarter of the replies said exactly what you said.

I don't know what you're talking about, r54

RIP Rue. I teared up hearing of her passing.

Feeling a little bit down now.

In another words, r58, you feel magenta?

I agree. She was probably reading this datalounge thread when she keeled over! OP is a MURDERER!

OP is like that cat in the nursing home...

hey, R51: Thank you, Captain Obvious!!

Let's just say she was prettier 24 hours ago.

She was always ugly.

It's funny that, thanks to this thread, the last time Rue McClanahan crossed my mind during her lifetime was when I watched her exposing the sides of her tits in that stripping video.

R65, I was coincidentally watching episodes of Golden Girls on Hallmark or the other channel (WG?) last night while reading this thread. I don't often watch GG now, though I still love it, but last night they had several of my favorite episodes, so I decided to watch. So, now my last images of her while alive will be both GG and shaking her ass and jiggling her tits. Of course, the latter can be said to have occurred to a lesser degree on GG.

Bump for Rue's titty jiggling

I'm glad I'm not the only one who could never overlook how flat her face was. I thought it was just me.

Do you really think she had a flat face? I've never heard of such a condition.

You people are sick. I hope when you die, there's a lot of chit-chat at your funeral about how ugly you were.

She was a real beauty even older on the Golden girls. Her face was beautiful, her body was great, and her roomates knew she was the youngest and prettiest. They just made the jokes because Blanche acted so arrogant and also because it's just a comedy. And yes to the person who typed that Bea looked a lot prettier in the later seasons.

Rue appeared a few years ago on "Celebrity Ghost Stories" in which she discussed the passing of a close friend who appeared to her after his death and let her know that " everything is alright" and that she should not be sad. Anyone else remember her comments on that show?

Regardless of her looks (which I believe were striking and unconventionally pretty), Rue had charisma. There was a sexual aggressiveness and hunger to her that the other GG lacked.I find her completely believable as a maneater and narcissist.

RIP Rue.

She had bad skin. Pockmarks. Never a looker.

None of the women were "pretty." The show wouldn't have worked if they'd all been beautiful. They looked like the average woman...they had "accessible" looks. Had they been beautiful, the audience wouldn't have accepted them in those roles.

I was walking my dog on west 46th st in NY, "Restaurant Row" if you will, and dog dumped on the sidewalk in front of Joe Allens and before I could retrieve the bag to pick it up, Rue came bolting out of the door and stepped right in it. She laughed, thank god, and told me my dog was adorable....she was wearing all white in the dead of winter...

Bushman awaits!

So glad to see The Thread That Killed Rue McClanahan back again!

After all, I have had half the men in Dade County!

I swear I saw a nude shot of Betty White when young and she had a very nice body.

R14 here. Rue had more talent in one tit than most of the so called "starlets" have in their entire siliconed bodies.

I miss the GG. Sad we'll never get a proper reunion.

Did Rue have a nose job as a young woman? Her nose looked kind of sculpted and unreal to me.

Rue was good-looking when she was young; not conventionally pretty, but good-looking. As an older women she was still attractive.

Betty was conventionally pretty and had those girlish dimples which made her look younger. She was also an attractive older woman.

Bea was passably attractive in her younger days. She was never what you would call pretty. As she grew older she looked and sounded more and more mannish. And of course being so tall and large didn't make her seem more feminine and alluring.

Did Dorothy ever get the hump on her back removed?

I thought this was a NEW thread and didn't pay attention to the date at all. I honestly thought R19 was some blissfully ignorant retard!

Rue's niece is former actress/dancer turned animal psychic Amelia Kinkade, best known as the possessed "Angela" from "Night of the Demons"

Photo of Rue and Amelia on the set with director Kevin S. Tenney

Why don't I have any animal psychics in my family?!

Agreed, R73. I don't think Blanche would've been the same with Betty. Sure, she played the nymphomaniac Sue Ann Nivens, but Sue Ann was never sexy because Betty is not sexy. Yes, she's pretty, but she's got a wholesome beauty, whereas Rue's Blanche had sex appeal. Betty was better suited for Rose, with her big, bright eyes and dimpled smile and overall innocent face. Thank God they had them switch roles! Even Betty has said many times over the decades that Rue took Blanche to places she wouldn't have dared.

Betty did have a sexier body than Rue, though, with much bigger titties than Rue had (which was mentioned in the dialogue a number of times).

At any rate, though, you're of course right that they were each perfection in the roles they got, and thank God the casting went as it did.

The Marines are looking for a few good men who have NOT slept with Blanche Devereaux!

Question to DL lesbians: who would you have preferred to sleep with, Betty or Rue? Would the opportunity to motorboat Betty's tits have won out?

I only hire unattractive, albeit lethal housekeepers.

Bumping for the thread that murdered Rue

Remember when they stuck on the island and mentioned Rose's nose job - that never made sense - Betty had a big, hooked honker. Rue had one of those classic, overly-refined noses (or nose jobs) - that joke should've been about Blanche.

[quote]Betty did have a sexier body than Rue

I disagree. Betty had a gut. It's very noticeable in the Bob Hope episode when the girls sneak into a men's lockerroom dressed as golfers. Betty's pants are pulled up so high and her pooch juts out.

On the other hand, Rue had a killer body in the first and last season. In between, her weight fluctuated and she often wore loose blouses and pant suits. But in Season 1 and Season 7 when she was svelte, she wore tight, waist-cinching dresses. I'm thinking of the teal number she wore when Big Daddy first came to visit and Sophia told her she looked like the night hostess at Denny's (haha), and the little black dress she wore when she was dating Jerry Kennedy, the mama's boy. She looked very fetching in both outfits.

Someone on another forum described Rue as sultry and Betty as pretty. I gotta agree.

Agreed, r95. Not only did the joke not make sense looking at Betty's nose, but it also made no sense considering everything we knew about Rose Nylund.

Plus, nobody ever brings up Rose's nose job a few months later when Blanche is considering plastic surgery on "Whose Face Is It Anyway?", and doesn't Rose express some disapproval (or at least misgivings) about plastic surgery on that one?

Yes, r96, clearly Rue lost a whole lot of weight during the hiatus between Season 6 and Season 7 (I wonder what particular diet or exercise method she hit on that summer?), and particularly in the first half of Season 7, she looks fabulous. It's shown off to particular advantage in, as you say, the Jerry Kennedy little black dress, and also the red suit she wears when hosting the Save the McKinley Lighthouse telethon in "The Monkey Show" (see link).

But yes, there were years in between when she wasn't so svelte.

I think Rue was very beautiful in her own way for a woman in her 50s and 60s. She looked young in the first season and very thin in the last season. Blanche was much more complicated and better character in the beginning, then they made her just a man eater.

I saw her once at a 7/11 in Hollywood and tried to chat her up. She couldn't have been more unfriendly and her face looked like the moon- filled with pockmarks. Not pretty at all. Layers of makeup hides a lot of flaws on actresses.

Betty's boobs were much bigger than Rue's. For some people, that's all that matters.

R101 Like for men here.

Bump for our beloved Rue.

Rue was okay looking but completely blind to her son's gay relationship with the late Brad Davis. She was a homophobe. She erased "Some of My Best Friends Are" in which she played a bitter woman who keeps falling iin love with gay men from her memoir.

Rue was always grotesquely unattractive and the least popular actress on the show.

R104 I thought Rue in her book said that she slept with Brad.

r106, she alluded to Brad wanting to take her from "behind".

1969

not pretty in my eyes and

if i come across one more nude picture of betty white i will projectile vomit. she was not nudie material.

r105

No Estelle, that was you

Yes, what was up with her nose?

R105 In my opinion, Betty was the least popular, I loathed the Rose character and her insipid St. Olaf stories.

I am so happy to see that I am not alone in finding Rue to be way less attractive than Betty.

I found her casting as the elder femme fatale to be stretching credulity. She has an odd face, and while she is certainly not ugly, she is not a woman who men would get hot and bothered over.

r113

Still mad you lost the Little Miss Brooklyn eh?

I call myself water Lily😂

She was pretty enough to seduce Brad Davis in his prime.

Very pretty

She may not have been conventionally pretty, but she had sex appeal. Rue definitely sold the idea that men were falling over themselves to fuck Blanche. Plus, sharing the screen with matronly Betty and especially Bea and Estelle, she came off all the more attractive.

I always thought she was pretty, but for a time long past. She reminds me of young actresses from the Thirties and Forties when what was considered pretty was different from today. She was a good actress, her role as Blanche was quite a departure from the neurotic Vivian on "Maude."

Part of the tension on the set was Bea considered herself the first among three equals. When Estelle Getty emerged as the fourth star, it diluted her screen time even further. I can only imagine if Elaine Stritch became a cast member how that would have affected the dynamic.

Pretty is as pretty does.

r7, no she was just an aging slut.

Jane Fonda looks a lot like Rue. Good hair and nice eyes, but they're wrinkled old broads who think they're hot looking.

Blanche could put both feet behind her head. That doesn't need to be pretty.

[quote]Suzanne from "Designing Women" or even Flo from "Alice".

Suzanne WAS stunning just fat, and Flo was a whore.

The biggest so called maneaters I have know were not all that pretty. My most beautiful girlfriend was not that savvy or successful when it came to men.

Reading this thread prior to r41 then BOOM

Yes. She looked much prettier in motion than still photographs.

She had a very Irish face. Like Conan, but especially like actress Bronagh Gallagher

Blanche was one of those cases where she thought she was hot shit and carried herself that way, so all the she was with men bought it too. She was fun, wasn't pushing for serious relationships (ususually), and she loved to fuck a lot. If she could cook and do a household choirs, she'd be the perfect woman for most straight men.

Haha which of you bumped this? I just mentioned it on the Murder On The Orient Express thread in light of Albert Finney's passing.

We should be eternally ashamed of what we did to poor Rue :(

She wasn't pretty, but I think she was the best actor of the four.

[quote]Haha which of you bumped this? I just mentioned it on the Murder On The Orient Express thread in light of Albert Finney's passing.

🙋🏽‍♂️

Googled it after your mention in the MOTOE thread about Albert Finney !

Haha R132 I hope you enjoyed it! I laughed my ass off at the nurse for Rue. She was my favourite btw and very pretty.

R130 a shame this has only worked for lovely people like Rue and Albert Finney, given all our Trump threads!

She did have a strange face but I still thought she was pretty.

Straight men always like a friendly girl, even if she isn't that pretty...and Rue was pretty.

Blanche is my favorite chat and large part of that is because of Rue. She may not be very pretty but very sexy. Sexy always beat pretty. In a a game of marry, kill, fuck among the GGs she is the hands down overwhelming choice for the latter.

A young Rue...

R124, that's true what you said about Polly...I mean, Flo...

R7 Agreed. If they'd cast Faye Dunaway (a southern gal who was actually beautiful) as Blanche the jokes wouldn't have worked. She's just come off as an arrogant cunt.

I call her pretty. Certainly not unattractive! She had the charm and the vivacity to appear sexy and magnetic, which is more important than being a great beauty.

Remember Anna Sten? Thought not. Very beautiful actress that MGM tried to turn into the next Garbo. But she was charisma deficient and her career never took off. So yes, it takes more than pretty. Jean Harlow was hardly a beauty, but men were crazy about her and women wanted to be her.

Rue McClanahan was very pretty when she was younger, but as she aged, her nose got smaller (plastic surgery?), and it made her face look strange.

OP , please eat scat and die !!!!!

Her look suited the character perfectly.

She was pretty when younger, but she didn't age well at all. I think she had some health problems in her later years. She died at the youngest age of all the main Golden Girls cast members too.

Blanche was a great role and Rue played her to perfection.

Rue wasn't beautiful but she was a slut - she fucked Brad Davis in her back yard.

Watch her in Maude, OP.

In MacBird!

She was a dish....

I haven't thought of Anna Sten, r142......

She looks like Holland Taylor at R146.

I think Rue McClanahan was pretty when young and a nice looking lady when older.

They are covering her this Sunday at 8:00 on REELZ channel on the show “Autopsy: The Last Hours of....”

Rue got nearly as much a sex as Blanche

[quote] I always thought Rue made a bizarre belle given her strange flat face.

In my experience, it is not always the beauties who are the sluts.

Just like men, women with confidence, can appear much hotter than they are. Take the Duchess of Windsor, she was NOT a beautiful woman, however she kept charming man after man, until she got one to give up a throne for her. At least, Rue and by extension Blanche, was much better looking than the Duchess.

Blanche was always the one who was dressed, coiffed and made up to attract men. She was pretty ENOUGH, and flirtatious, and eager to tease and please. Sure, some men might have liked Rose's tits, but the guys knew Blanche would show them a good time and demand as much for herself. Rose always looked matronly, which was the joke about Sue Ann Nivens on MTM. She didn't look like the typical femme fatale but she was a total maneater.

OK, was anyone talking smack about the Princess?

She looked great on Maude and the first two seasons of Golden Girls until she got that hideous Afro-esque perm.

Did she have a facelift after Season 1 of the GG?

Yeah

Pretty UGLY!!!