The Golden Girls: Encyclopedia II - The Golden Girls - Characters

The Golden Girls - Characters

The show starred Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak, who maintained an arsenal of withering put-downs and killer glares; Betty White as the dense Scandanavian nit-wit Rose Nylund; Rue McClanahan as oversexed Southern belle Blanche Devereaux; and Estelle Getty as the wisecracking Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy's mother (although Getty is actually two months younger than Arthur so was heavily made up to seem much older). In the early days of casting, McClanahan auditioned for the role of Rose, while White auditioned for the role of Blanche. During its original run, The Golden Girls won 65 Emmy nominations, 10 Emmy awards, 4 Golden Globe Awards, 2 Viewers for Quality Television awards. All the actresses won Emmy Awards for their performance on the show. The Golden Girls, along with All In The Family and Will & Grace, are the only shows where all the principal actors have won Emmy Awards.

The Golden Girls - Dorothy Zbornak

Main article: Dorothy Zbornak

Dorothy Zbornak (née Petrillo), who, in the last episode of the series became Dorothy Zbornak Hollingsworth, is an Italian girl raised in Brooklyn, New York by her mother, Sophia, and her father, Salvadore. "Pussycat" is her mother's nick name for her. In high school, Stanley Zbornak got her pregnant and a wedding took place to give the baby a name. They were married for 38 years and Stan cheated on her numerous times before leaving her for a flight attendant, named Chrissy, whom he met on the way to a business conference in Hawaii. After moving to Miami, Dorothy continued working as a substitute teacher. Dorothy has two children, Michael and Kate, and a grandchild (born to Michael). The grandchild was never shown on the series. At the end of season seven, she married Blanche's uncle, Lucas Hollingsworth, played by Leslie Nielsen.

Though Dorothy and Stan were divorced, he made several appearances on the show, usually running to Dorothy whenever something went wrong in his life. Stan continually saw Dorothy as a comforting, reliable figure, even though he was the one who ended their marriage. Dorothy emerged from the divorce a stronger person, while her ex seemed to descend further into childishness. They ended up having a one-night stand in the first season (which Stan mistakenly thought would lead to a reconciliation), and, a few seasons later, started dating again and planned to remarry. Dorothy called off the wedding when Stan asked her to sign a pre-nuptial agreement. Sophia then proudly announced to the wedding guests: 'She dumped him. Remember that!'

The Golden Girls - Rose Nylund

Main article: Rose Nylund

Rose Nylund (née Lindstrom) is from the small farming town of St. Olaf, Minnesota, a community of Norwegian-Americans. Born out of wedlock to a monk and his lover, she was adopted by the Lindstrom family. She was married for many years to Charlie Nylund, until he died of a heart attack while having sex with her. After living alone for a while, she moved to Miami and found work at a grief counseling center. During the middle of the show's run, her husband's pension is cut off, and she is not able to make enough money to support herself at the counseling center, so she takes a job as consumer reporter Enrique Mas' assistant at local TV station. She has three daughters, Kirsten, Bridget, and Jeanella, and a son, Adam. The latter two are mentioned, but never seen on the show. She has a granddaughter, Charlie, who appears once in the original show and again in the spin-off series The Golden Palace. Other family members who have appeared are her free-spirited mother, Alma (whom Rose nearly smothered with her over-protectiveness), her sister Lily (who is blind), and another sister, Holly (whom Rose cannot stand). Given that Rose has stated that her parents loved 'all nine of us equally', there is a noticeable lack of visiting siblings during the course of the show's run. Her granddaughter by Kirsten is named Charlie Jr., after the grandfather she never met. This can be seen in the episode where Kirsten comes to visit to discuss Rose's will.

In later seasons, Rose becomes romantically involved with Miles Webber (played by Harold Gould), a college professor, whom we later find out is part of the Witness Protection Program. Incidentally, the same actor who played Miles also played "Arnie", one of Rose's love interests in the first season.

The Golden Girls - Blanche Devereaux

Main article: Blanche Devereaux

Blanche Devereaux (née Hollingsworth) is a Southern belle, who grew up on a plantation outside of Atlanta, Georgia and was always the apple of her father's ("Big Daddy") eye, even though she tries to spin it the other way many other times. She has many sibling rivalries with her sisters Charmaine (played by Barbara Babcock) and Virginia (played by Sheree North). She also faces difficulty coming to terms with her brother Clayton's homosexuality. Throughout most of the series, Blanche is portrayed as man-hungry. At the beginning of the series, the house the girls share belongs to her. However, later in the series, she sells equal shares of the house to Dorothy, Rose and Sophia, so one of them is not forced to move out due to local ordinances on the number of people Blanche can rent to. Her husband George died when a drunk driver hit him head-on. At his funeral, she picked up a man, as Rose said, because "she couldn't live without a man."

Blanche is very vain, and as a result, she always tries to act younger than she is. While her true age is never revealed (it was mentioned she even had her true date of birth removed from vital records "by order of the Governor"), several clues point to her being in her fifties. In one of the early episodes she is going through menopause, which typically occurs in the early 50s for most women. She is the youngest of the group, that is pretty clear. Throughout the series, she claims to be in her forties, but nobody ever believes her. The apparent ages of her children also suggest she's at least in her early to mid fifties.

Blanche works as an art gallery employee. Judging from her brief mentions of them on the show, it appears she has six children; two daughters, Rebecca and Janet, both of whom appear on the show, and four sons, including Matthew , a CPA who appears in the spin-off series The Golden Palace, and three other sons Biff, Doug, and Skippy (who has asthma) who are mentioned, but never seen on the series.

A seventh Devereaux child, David (played by Mark Moses), was discovered when the young man turned up at the house, looking for George. This led Blanche to struggle with the fact that her husband, to whom she was devoted, was unfaithful during their marriage.

The Golden Girls - Sophia Petrillo

Main article: Sophia Petrillo

Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy's mother, was born in Sicily and moved to New York, after she annulled her first (arranged) marriage to Guido Spirelli (she was also briefly engaged to a young man from her village, Augustine Bagatelli, as a teenager). Then, she married Salvadore Petrillo and had three children with him, Dorothy, Phil (who sometimes cross-dressed), and Gloria (who married rich). She was put away in a nursing home by Dorothy and comes to live with the girls when her retirement home, Shady Pines, burned to the ground. Sophia does not have many good things to say about the home, and alludes to poor treatment by the staff many times throughout the series' run, though at least once, she compliments their services. Due to Sophia's Sicilian descent, there are constant hints in the series that she and her family have some mafia connections; she once stated that she had lived through "two world wars, fifteen vendettas, four operations and two Darrins in Bewitched".

Members of Sophia's family who have appeared on the program: her sister Angela (played by Nancy Walker), her brother Angelo (played by Bill Dana), her daughter Gloria, and, in flashbacks, her husband Sal, and her mother (played by Bea Arthur). Phil is never seen, but he passes away later on the series. At her son's funeral, Sophia ends the long feud she had with her daughter-in-law Angela (played by Brenda Vaccaro). Sophia also married Max Weinstock, Sal's business parter, but soon separated from him.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Characters", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki