Estelle Getty of 'Golden Girls' Dies At 84

FILE** In this Dec. 25, 1985 file photo, four veteran actresses, from left, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur and Betty White, from the television series 'The ' Golden Girls' are shown during a break in taping in Hollywood. Actress Estelle Getty has died at the age of 84. Her son, Carl Gettleman, says she died early Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at home in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, file)

Estelle Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success before landing a role of a lifetime in 1985 as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's The Golden Girls, has died. She was 84.

Getty, who suffered from advanced dementia, died at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica.

"Estelle always wanted to be an actress, and she achieved that goal beyond her dreams," former Golden Girls co-star Rue McClanahan told The Associated Press. "Don't feel sad about her passing. She will always be with us in her crowning achievement, Sophia."

"The Golden Girls," featuring four female retirees sharing a house in Miami, grew out of NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff's belief that television was ignoring its older viewers.

Three of its stars had already appeared in previous series: Bea Arthur in Maude, Betty White in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and McClanahan in Mama's Family. The last character to be cast was Sophia Petrillo, the feisty 80-something mother of Arthur's character.

"Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the greatest comic duos ever, and I will miss her," Arthur said in a statement.

When she auditioned, Getty was appearing on stage in Hollywood as the carping Jewish mother in Harvey Fierstein's play Torch Song Trilogy. In her early 60s, she flunked her Golden Girls test twice because it was believed she didn't look old enough to play 80.

"I could understand that," she told an interviewer a year after the show debuted. "I walk fast, I move fast, I talk fast."

She came prepared for the third audition, however, wearing dowdy clothes and telling an NBC makeup artist, "To you this is just a job. To me it's my entire career down the toilet unless you make me look 80." The artist did, Getty got the job and won two Emmys.

"The only comfort at this moment is that although Estelle has moved on, Sophia will always be with us," White said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The Golden Girls culminated a long struggle for success during which Getty worked low-paying office jobs to help support her family while she tried to make it as a stage actress.

"I knew I could be seduced by success in another field, so I'd say, 'Don't promote me, please,'" she recalled.

She also appeared in small parts in a handful of films and TV movies during that time, including Tootsie, Deadly Force and Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story.

After her success in The Golden Girls, other roles came her way. She played Cher's mother in Mask, Sylvester Stallone's in Stop or My Mom Will Shoot and Barry Manilow's in the TV film Copacabana. Other credits included Mannequin and Stuart Little (as the voice of Grandma Estelle).

The Golden Girls, which ran from 1985 to 1992, was an immediate hit, and Sophia, who began as a minor character, soon evolved into a major one.

Audiences particularly loved the verbal zingers Getty would hurl at the other three. When McClanahan's libidinous character Blanche once complained that her life was an open book, Sophia shot back, "Your life's an open blouse."

"I always told her she should be a standup comic. She was so funny in person," McClanahan recalled. "She would always say, 'Why couldn't we make these characters Jewish? Why am I Sicilian?'"

Getty had gained a knack for one-liners in her late teens when she did standup comedy at a Catskills hotel. Female comedians were rare in those days, however, and she bombed.

Undeterred, she continued to pursue a career in entertainment, and while her parents were encouraging, her father also insisted that she learn office skills so she would have something to fall back on.

Born Estelle Scher to Polish immigrants in New York, Getty fell in love with theater when she saw a vaudeville show at age 4.

She married New York businessman Arthur Gettleman (the source of her stage name) in 1947, and they had two sons, Carl and Barry. The marriage prevailed despite her long absences on the road and in The Golden Girls.

Getty was evasive about her height, acknowledging only that she was "under 5 feet and under 100 pounds."

McClanahan said her nickname for Getty was Slats.

"Because she was so short, itty-bitty," she said.

In addition to her son Carl, Getty is survived by son Barry Gettleman, of Miami; a brother, David Scher of London; and a sister, Rosilyn Howard of Las Vegas.

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Olive Riley, 'World's Oldest Blogger,' Dies At 108

Olive Riley (October 20, 1899 – July 12, 2008) was an Australian woman, believed to have been the world's oldest blogger. She began her blog The Life of Riley in February 2007 at the age of 107 and made her final post on June 26, 2008 from a nursing home in Woy Woy, New South Wales, complaining of a cough about two weeks before she died at the age of 108. She had posted over 70 entries, as well as several video posts on YouTube.

Olive Riley died at the age of 108, according to the Associated Press. Her final days were spent at a nursing facility in Woy Woy, New South Wales, Australia where she continued to chronicle her life growing up in the Outback, raising kids, and working as a bartender and farm cook on a her blog, The Life of Riley. Upon news of her death, her blog received a flurry of hits and experienced technical difficulties. You may view her temporary blog - http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com/

Here's an excerpt of one of her final posts:

Hello again to all my friends.

You 21st century people live a different life than the one I lived as a youngster in the early 1900s. Take Washing Day, for instance. These days you just toss your dirty clothes into a washing machine, press a few switches, and it's done.

I remember scratching around to find a few pieces of wood to fire the copper for Mum. Sometimes I'd find a broken wooden fruit box that I'd split with a tommyhawk. Sometimes I'd gather some twigs and dead branches, and use them for firewood.

When the water in the copper began to boil, Mum would add a cupful of soap chips, and throw in a cube of Reckitt's Blue wrapped in a muslin bag to whiten the clothes. Then she put in all the dirty clothes, first rubbing out the stains with a bar of Sunlight soap. She used a corrugated washing board for that.

It's nice to see an older generation take hold of technology to share their own stories. Plus, Olive Riley showed everyone that you're never to old to blog! May she rest in peace.

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Actress Dody Goodman Dead At 92

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Biography:

Dody Goodman is more than an actress. She is a comedienne, a dancer, a producer and a writer! Born in Columbus, Ohio, the red-haired Dody began dance lessons at the tender age of eight, and headed to New York City after graduating High School. She was soon dancing for ballet companies for the reputable Radio City Music Hall and the Metropolitan Opera. These experiences naturally led to opportunies to dance in Broadway productions, which Dody did. She danced in four hit musicals: High Button Shoes, Call Me Madam, Miss Liberty, and A Wonderful Town.

Dody Goodman admits that she's not really sure when the transition from ballerina to comedienne began. Always a backstage clown, one of the first to take notice of Dody's antics was Wonderful Town director, George Abbot, who was so delighted with Dody's performance as Violet, had an extra scene written for her. It was during the touring production of this mucical that Imogene Coca persuaded Dody to put her dancing shoes aside and concentrate on her natural comedic talents. So it began, Dody started with small parts on television variety shows, remember the "resident zany" on Jack Parr's, Tonight? Around this time Dody also entered the nightclub circuit and enjoyed some off Broadway Revues such as Julie Monk's Four Below and the Shoestring Revue Of 1957.

Dody Goodman says that she was influenced most by Lucille Ball, Gracie Allen, and Spring Byington but developed her own unique brand of comedic style which has entertained audiences far and wide in all genre's of performing. Broadway shows like, Grease, My Daughter, Your Son, Period Of Adjustment, Rainy Day In Newark, and the revival of The Front Page. National Tours include Nunsence; for two years Dody entertained audiences with her characterization of Sister Mary Regina.

Television credits include appearances on the Dinah Show, NBC's Bandstand, The Merv Griffin Show, Girl Talk, Liars Club, The Stan Kahn Show, and Search For Tomorrow, as well as sit-com shows in which Dody guest starred, including, Punky Brewster, Different Strokes, The Mary Tyler Show and Mary Hartman where Dody performed with the ensemble cast for three full seasons. Motion Picture credits include Grease, Grease II,Cool As Ice, Frozen Assets, and Samantha. Dody Goodman is enjoying the resurgence of the successful film production, Grease which is celebrating it's 20th anniversary and is currently being shown on wide screens nation wide.

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In The Headlines:

Stage, film and television actress Dody Goodman has died at the Actors Fund Home in New Jersey, a representative for the fund has confirmed.

Playbill.com said Goodman was believed to have been 92 when she died Sunday (22nd June 2008).

Her stage credits as Dolores Goodman included performances in the Broadway musicals Viva O'Brien, Something for the Boys, One Touch of Venus, Laffing Room Only and Miss Liberty.

She later went by the name Dody Goodman and starred in Broadway shows like Call Me Madam, Wonderful Town, My Darlin' Aida, as well as the Off Broadway productions of Shoestring Revue and Parade, Playbill.com said.

Goodman was a regular player on The Tonight Show when Jack Paar was host and earned an Emmy Award nomination in 1957 for Best Continued Performance in a Series by a Comedienne.

Although her gift for upstaging Paar reportedly led to her departure from the series, Playbill.com said she frequently appeared on the shows like Toast of the Town, The Phil Silvers Show and The Merv Griffin Show in the 1960s and 1970s.

She also had supporting roles in the TV shows Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Diff'rent Strokes, as well as in the movie musical Grease.

Goodman also appeared in numerous productions of the musical Nunsense and its sequels, the theater industry trade magazine said.