"We were all vital, feeling, sexy, well-groomed, beautifully made-up and coiffed and
not just a bunch of old women with the breasts hanging down to here."
(Bea Arthur, actress)

"Life still goes on for women over fifty!"
(Susan Harris, creator of The Golden Girls)

"They are four adults who are rebelling and doing what they damn please."
(Tim Brooks, TV historian)

"Never do without a best friend, prefer losing a lover!"
(The Golden Girls Lifestyle)

Blanche: stopped counting her birthdays at the age of 42
Dorothy: shares her room more often with her mother than with men
Rose: she narrates St. Olaf stories like no one else
Sophia: she shows that age is just a matter of attitude

The Golden Girls are a comedy TV-series telling the story of four completely different women (Blanche, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia) who share a house at 6151, Richmond Street, South Miami Beach, Florida 33181.

Not only Blanche's initials B.E.D. (= Blanche Elisabeth Devereaux) represent insatiable sexual demand, Rose performes childish naivety combined with great eagerness, while men-frustrated Dorothy and her eloquent mother Sophia are blessed with powerful sarcasm and mockery. This explosive mixture blows up in each episode and guarantees many roars of laughter. Each episode bases on a certain topic which you can hardly find in many other series. It's refreshing how the authors manage to perform even seriously-touched episodes in a funny but not trivial way.

At first, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia are lodgers in Blanche's house. As the four ladies become best friends and the city building authority puts the screws on Blanche, she decides to make them joint owners. All of them share the passion of chocolade-cheesecake and men. They help each other solving any problems but they also like teasing each other very much. Every day the four ladies repeat their competition who's next to catch an admirer. While doing so, they easily behave like wild teenagers.
There have been numerous inconsistencies in the series.


Apparently, because of so many diverse subjects and the multi-layered kind of humour it wasn't always easy to maintain the central thread. For instance, Blanche's initials have not always been B.E.D., but also B.M.H. (= Blanche Marie Hollingsworth) in that episode where Blanche's nanny comes up. However, several authors have been responsible for the series.

That's why it has never lost its high spirit making it easy to overcome those contradictions. They are worth mentioning anyway in order to avoid brooding about when discovering one of them...
After her marriage with Lucas in episode #180, Dorothy leaves The Golden Girls. Blanche, Rose and Sophia decide to sell their house and buy a hotel at Miami Beach called the Golden Palace. The girls were told that the hotel was running profitably. However, because of financial problems, the personnel restricts to the black hotelier Roland, to the Mexican chef, to the pool cleaner Brad and to twelve-year-old Oliver. Oliver's parents had simply forgotten him when they checked out. With Blanche as the receptionist, with Rose as the head of housekeeping and with Sophia as the new chef the Golden Palace gets back its old brightness without debts.
The different characteristics were turned out stronger than in The Golden Girls: Blanche continues struggling for her unrestricted hormone pushes, Rose merges in her role as a country yokel and Sophia behaves more viciously and in a more quick-witted way as she already used to be. It was a big loss, however, when Dorothy left the cast. Unfortunately, there will probably never be a Golden Girls reunion as Bea Arthur once said: "Why tamper with something that was so wonderful... And besides - what would you prove by doing a reunion?" A least, she left the series at the peak of its success! Estelle Getty's character Sophia Petrillo became a regular part during the last two seasons of Empty Nest (1993-95), a Golden Palace spin-off.


"The Golden Girls valued women and put special emphasis on the importance of women's networks friendships, and experiences. The series was big enough to showcase the concerns and escapades of four distinctive, aging women, yet balanced enough to combine the individual experiences into a positive picture of four senior citizens functioning together to make the most of life."
(Dawn Michelle Nill, www.museum.tv)

"The audience isn't just geezers who can't work the remote control. The 11 p.m. airing of 'Golden Girls' attracts as many women in the 18-to-34 age group as MTV. (...)

Entertainment Weekly put 'Golden Girls' on its 2003 annual collection of favorite pop-culture people and things of the moment. And there are dozens of Internet fan sites, including Germany's 'Blanche Online.' (...)

It has developed an 'I Love Lucy' kind of endurance among new generations of viewers, said Lifetime senior vice president and TV historian Tim Brooks. Nearly 30% of the E-mails the network receives about the show are from college students.

What gives a show about white-hairs such youth appeal?

'They are young people in older people's bodies' said Brooks. 'They didn't care what anybody thought about them. They all dated. They talked about sex. Young people relate to people who think like them more than they do to people who look like them."

Brandon Tartikoff, NBC's 1980s programming chief, came up with the idea of 'Golden Girls' after hearing his elderly relatives speak their minds during a visit in Miami. His lieutenant at the time, Warren Littlefield, enlisted Susan Harris, the creator of the groundbreaking comedy 'Soap', to write the series.

Putting sex chat and snappy putdowns in the mouths of older women made such comments more palatable in the 1980s, when prime time was tamer. 'Golden Girls' was also ahead of the curve in dealing with hot-button topics like interracial dating, AIDS and homosexuality.

Aside from those issues, which are still relevant today, there are few contemporary references that date the show. As older characters, the 'Girls' weren't slaves to fashion or music trends that would be stale by now. (...) Their attitude is timeless. (...)"
(Stephen Battaglio, NY Daily News Staff Writer)