Showtune Sunday: All About Bea Arthur!

A few days ago, I ran a fun post about when Rufus Wainwright met Bea Arthur and he told her how when he would watch The Golden Girls, she reminded him of his grandmother.

Bea, according to an item in the New York Post, took it all in then said to Wainwright: “I’m not your fucking grandmother.”

I’ve been getting feedback via email and Facebook about this and I want to make clear: I think Bea Arthur is terrific. I met her the night the was inducted into the TV Academy Hall of Fame and interviewed her the next day – one of the last interviews she ever did as she died about five months later.

I’m also aware that she donated left $300,000 in her will to to the All Fornay Center, a New York organization that aids homeless gay youth.

Her seven seasons on The Golden Girls and six years on Maude brought her to an entirely different level of stardom that was far different from her 30 years as an acclaimed theater actress in the original Broadway productions of Mame, Fiddler on the Roof and The Three Penny Opera.

“Suddenly the whole country knew me. It was very odd and different,” she told me when we chatted. “Originally, I used to find myself running away from people and dodging them at restaurants. But I since have found that people who do come up and tell you they enjoy you and your performance, it’s really very sweet.”

Here are some musical numbers from Miss Arthur who died on April 25, 2009 at the age of 86. It’s a pity there wasn’t a film version of her terrific one-woman show made. I saw it in 2004 with my friend, Tim Fairholm, at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood and also in the audience that night were Dixie Carter and Hal Holbrook as well as Nancy Sinatra.

(Sadly, Tim died in 2006, at the age of 4o. His birthday was on April 25 – the same date as Miss Arthur’s death)

But there is a soundtrack available on CD that is so enjoyable – especially when she opens the show sharing her recipe for leg of lamb. Somehow, it works!