Bea Arthur Dead at 86

Beatrice Arthur, the tall, brassy voiced actress whose claim to fame was as a foil to her cousin's husband, and later as quarter of old women rooming together, died today, She had been battling cancer for some time.

Born Bernice Frankel in New York City, and long a fixture on stage and Broadway, she landed on television in the early 1970's as Maude Finlay, the cousin of Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton) on All in the Family. Maude proved to be the perfect liberal foil to her archconservative and bigoted cousin-in-law Archie Bunker (the late Carroll O'Connor.

laughvids/CBS/Sony Television/YouTube

Cool that they have that Plymouth commercial featuring the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.

She proved so popular that in 1972, Arthur was given her own show, Maude. This show came on air at the right time for women. The feminist movement was reaching its peak, and about a year after the show's premiere, The US Supreme Court decided on the thorny issue of abortion- Roe V. Wade. Like the show it had spun off from- the aforementioned All in the Family- Maude touched upon social issues like alcoholism and abortion, which Maude had during the series run. This clip features Maude and Carol (Adrienne Barbeau) talking about Maude's dilemma on whether to keep her unborn child, or terminate the pregnancy:


obliomunro/CBS/Sony Televsion/YouTube

This episode aired in November 1972, months before the landmark Roe V. Wade decision.

Arthur won an Emmy in 1977 in the lead actress category/

She gained a second life on TV in 1985 when NBC aired The Golden Girls. Arthur played Dorothy Zbornak, alongside Betty White (who played the ditzy Rose); Rue McClanahan (the sexpot Blanche Elizabeth Devereaux...before Sex and the City's Samantha Jones, there was Blanche Devereaux), and Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy's Sicilian-born spitfire mother (the late Estelle Getty)

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She won a comedy leading actress Emmy in 1988.

For both of those TV roles, Arthur was a long fixture on Broadway. One of her notable roles came in 1966 as Vera Charles, acerbic friend of Angela Landsbury's character in Mame. Arthur won a Tony for the role.

Arthur died peacefully today. She was 86.

Copyright (C) 2009, by Darren W. Alexander. All Rights Reserved.