The Truth About The Golden Girls Stars’ Real-Life Friendship

“Things have become quite spicy from time to time,” wrote McClanahan in his book, “but what was most for each of us individually and all of us in groups: chemistry worked. We were damn funny. And we did it together. This is what matters at the end of the day.”

White was five months older than Arthur and the oldest of the four Gilded girls stars, but she survived them all at more than a decade before her Death on December 31, 2021Just 17 days from his 100th birthday.

Estelle Getty died at 84 on July 22, 2008, after having fought the dementia of Lewy’s body for almost 10 years. “Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the biggest comic book duos of all time, and I will miss it,” said Arthur in a statement at the time.

“The only comfort at the moment is that although Estelle has evolved, Sophia will always be with us,” said White. Arthur died on April 25, 2009, at 86 and McClanahan, the youngest golden daughter, died at 76 years old on June 3, 2010.

In an update of a new pocket edition of her book in 2010, White wrote that the loss of her three co-stars, in particular: “Very recently, my beloved rue McClanahan, was very difficult to take. When you work so closely together, for so long, and that you have such a success, you find yourself locked in the heart.”

Seasons 1-7 of Golden Girls are streaming on Hulu.

(Originally published on July 30, 2019 at 3 a.m.))