Golden Girls cast-four lives in an apartment

The Golden Girls series was one of the hugely popular and long running comedy serials in America. It debuted on September 14th 1985 and was aired regularly by NBC till May 9 1992. During the course of its run it won many notable awards. There were 65 Emmy nominations, 11 Emmy awards, four Golden Globe Awards along with two Viewers for Quality Television awards. There were also Emmy awards for the four leading actresses. All this proves that the Golden Girls indeed was a milestone achievement in television entertainment business. Apart from the storyline that revolved round the four lead characters it was the cast that lend credibility to the success of this comedy series.

The four different characters were played to perfection by Beatrice Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty respectively. Beatrice played the part of Dorothy, Estelle played the part of Sophia who is Dorothy's mother, Betty played the part of Rose and Rue played the part of Blanche. It was however Estelle who played the part of Sophia which drew maximum applause from the viewers. Although Estelle played the role of Beatrice's mother, in actual life she was younger to her by 14 months. To look older than her age Estelle had to wear thick glasses and a wig. When the show took off the viewers could not make out the difference. On the other hand the youngest of the cast was Rue McClanahan. She was younger by almost 12 years.

In the beginning all two of the actresses were given roles that were different from the roles that they finally played. They were Rue McClanahan and Betty White. Rue was to play the part of Rose and Betty the part of Blanche. They impressed upon the producers to allow them to switch their roles since they had played similar roles previously in the past. The producers finally agreed and the rest is history. The storyline started with three women Blanche, Rose and Dorothy living together as roommates in a Miami apartment. They are joined by Sophia, Dorothy's mother, in the very first episode 'The Engagement'. From then on all the four women lived together and went on their lives.