Bea Arthur and Betty White allegedly did not get along during their “Golden Girls” era.
Co-producer Marsha Posner Williams addressed the long-rumored, frosty relationship between the two during a Pride LIVE! Hollywood panel in Los Angeles Wednesday night.
“When that red light was on [and the show was filming], there were no more professional people than those women, but when the red light was off, those two couldn’t warm up to each other if they were cremated together,” Williams shared, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Williams claimed that Arthur (who portrayed Dorothy Zbornak on the hit show) even called her up at home one time to complain about running into that “c–t” [White] at the grocery store and wanting to “write her a letter.”
“I said, ‘Bea, just get over it for crying out loud. Just get past it,’” she recalled.
Apparently, Arthur referred to White (who played Rose Nylund) by the c-word on multiple occasions.
The producer remembered being invited to Arthur’s home for dinner and “within 30 seconds of walking in the door, the c-word came out.”
Williams also noted that White — who died in December 2021 at the age of 99 — would often break character in the middle of the show and talk to the live audience, which “Bea hated.”
Another co-producer, Jim Vallely, theorized that the enmity was due to White getting more applause during cast introductions ahead of tapings. Williams disagreed, however, noting that Arthur — who died in 2009 at the age of 86 — despised doing publicity and came from a theatrical background while White was from the world of television.
Back in 2023, former casting director Joel Thurm exclusively told Page Six that Arthur had called White a “c–t” on set — but theorized that it was because Arthur and castmate Rue McClanahan (who portrayed Blanche Devereaux) disliked White’s behavior toward the fourth member of the cast, Estelle Getty (who played Sophia Petrillo).
“When Estelle would forget her lines, Betty would go out of character and keep the audience laughing by making a gesture with her thumb to her mouth and pointing to Estelle as if she had been drinking,” Thurm wrote in his memoir, “Sex, Drugs & Pilot Season.”
The gesture seemed particularly cruel as Getty was beginning to show signs of dementia and struggled to remember her lines, which were hidden on cue cards. Thurm told Page Six he didn’t believe White intended to be harsh, however, and was just trying to entertain the audience.
“The Golden Girls,” which ran from 1985 to 1992, ended after seven seasons allegedly because of Arthur, Williams claimed.
“Their contracts were up and … the executives went to the ladies, and Estelle said, ‘Yes, let’s keep going,’ and Rue said, ‘Yes, let’s keep going,’ and Betty said, ‘Yes, let’s keep going.’ And Bea said, ‘No f–king way,’ and that’s why that show didn’t continue,” she alleged.
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