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thefadd.

Posted to Media on Mon Aug 04, 2008 at 03:34:37 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Dreams of one final reunion are now down the drain as Estelle Getty has passed on. The actress best known for her role as the wise-cracking Sophia on Golden Girls has passed away.

Getty labored for years before her big break with the 1985-1992 sitcom about four female retirees in Florida. She was nominated a combined nine times for Golden Globe and Emmy awards, picking up each prize once. She started her career as a stand-up comic at a time when it was exceptionally rare to be a woman in such a position. She also worked office jobs well into middle age even while she still tried to succeed as an actress.

Getty's character Sophia was not initially a major role on the Golden Girls sitcom. Getty's quick wit and tight delivery, however, grew her character into the show's linchpin. One running joke throughout the series was that Sophia's daughter Dorothy (played by Bea Arthur) would send her back to the retirement home Shady Pines. The show was an anomaly of sorts in American television as it balanced humor with often weighty topics, address issues faced by older women in society. One of the most popular shows in the history of television, it can still be found frequently on television more than 15 years after it first went off the air.

Tags: edited by Port1080, written by thefadd, Golden Girls, television (all tags)

This story: 6 comments (3 from subqueue)
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3

Famous (?) person dies!

profwhat.

Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 04:25:52 PM EST

5.00 (astute)

I submit that Estelle Getty represents a frontier of fame: she is the least famous you can be and still have your death reported widely by the press.  On the fame/death curve, she is our observed localized minima.

At the height of her fame, she was not famous.  She played a minor character in an ensemble show in two long-cancelled sitcoms, the latter of which (the one where they all run the hotel) is best forgotten quickly.  When she walked down the street, was she mobbed for autographs?  Did the tabloids care who she was dating, or what she was doing?  No.  She was funny and everything, but, honestly, no one was really blown over that far.

4

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Re: Famous (?) person dies!

thefadd.

Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 05:42:59 PM EST

none

I think you're confusing Estelle Getty with Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan, there's something you don't know about me. I smoke rocks!

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

6

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Re: Famous (?) person dies!

MayorBob.

Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 06:32:59 PM EST

none

But she ended up driving her hubby, Balthazar, into the arms of that strumpet Sienna Miller.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

1

A Shame

keta.

Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 03:29:07 PM EST

4.00 (funny)

A major voice is now forever silenced.  Her book The Gulag Archipelago was a masterpiece of anticommunism.

2

I'll Ask My Question Now.

MayorBob.

Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 03:45:24 PM EST

none

Where did the media get off saying that Getty died of "advanced dementia"? Obviously she died, but I think she expired of something a bit more prosaic like heart failure or something.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

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Re: I'll Ask My Question Now.

thefadd.

Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 05:55:11 PM EST

none

It is annoying the way they all just repeat the same thing over and over again no matter the factoid's relevance to the actual situation isn't it.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

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