The bright lights of Broadway will dim tonight in fitting tribute to the late, great Bea Arthur

If she had never been Maude or Dorothy on The Golden Girls, Bea Arthur would have already have had a huge career – on Broadway.  So it is so appropriate that tonight, The Great White Way will dim its marquees for one minute – at exactly 8 p.m. – as a tribute to one of its great stars.

A Tony winner for her performance as Vera Charles in Mame, Arthur spent three decades on the stage with her best-known successes being Yente the matchmaker in the original company of Fiddler on the Roof and her star-making role as Lucy Brown in the off-Broadway and Broadway productions of Threepenny Opera.

Other Broadway credits included the Woody Allen play The Floating Light Bulb and in the 1950s, the musical Seventh Heaven and the play Nature’s Way.

It was so great that after she completed her seven seasons on Golden Girls, Miss Arthur put together a one-woman show which was a wonderful collection of stories and songs based on her life and career. It was glorious and, thankfully, the soundtrack is available on CD. When I watched her do the show at the El Portal in North Hollywood around five years ago, I knew she was in her early 80s and just marveled at how when she was singing, about 30 years just melted away.

She did a national tour of the show and it had a stellar run in New York as Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends. She was nominated for a Tony Award for the show but had the misfortune of being up against Elaine Stritch’s equally fabulous one-woman show.

They should have found a way to honor them both!