The Golden Girls

Rue McClanahan was an American actress, best known for her roles on television as Vivian Harmon on Maude, Fran Crowley on Mama's Family, and Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1987. McClanahan was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in... Healdton, Oklahoma, the daughter of Methodist parents Dreda Rheua-Nell , a beautician, and William Edwin "Bill" McClanahan a building contractor. She was of Irish and Choctaw, Native American ancestry. Her Choctaw great-grandfather was named Running Hawk according to her autobiography My First Five Husbands and the Ones Who Got Away . She grew up in Ardmore, Oklahoma; she graduated from Ardmore High School. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Tulsa; she majored in German and Theater, and was a member of the woman's sorority Kappa Alpha Theta. She was also a National Honor Society Member. McClanahan made her professional stage début at Pennsylvania's Erie Playhouse in 1957, in the play Inherit the Wind.
more

Estelle Scher-Gettleman , better known by her stage name Estelle Getty, was an American actress, who appeared in film, television, and theatre. She is best known for her role as Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls from 1985 to 1992, which won her an Emmy and a Golden Globe, on The Golden Palace... from 1992 to 1993 and on Empty Nest from 1993 to 1995. In her later years, after retiring from acting, she battled Lewy body dementia. Getty was born Estelle Scher in New York City, the daughter of Sarah and Charles Scher, Jewish immigrants from Poland who worked in the glass business. She had a sister Roz and a brother David. Getty got her start in the Yiddish theater and also as a comedienne in the Catskills borscht belt resorts, and among her most notable stage roles was as Harvey Fierstein's mother in Torch Song Trilogy during its original Broadway run. She is best known for her role as Sophia Petrillo on the popular 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls.
more

Betty Marion White Ludden is an American actress, comedienne, author, and television personality. With a career spanning over seven decades, she is best known to modern audiences for her television roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls. She... currently stars as Elka Ostrovsky in the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland. White has won seven Emmy Awards and has received 20 Emmy nominations over the course of her career, including being the first woman ever to receive an Emmy for game show hosting and is the only person to have an Emmy in all female performing comedic categories. In May 2010, White became the oldest person to guest-host Saturday Night Live, for which she also received a Primetime Emmy Award. White also holds the record for longest span between Emmy nominations for performances – her first was in 1951 and her most recent was in 2011, a span of 60 years – and has become the oldest nominee as of 2012, aged 90.
more