Estelle Getty will not be down for breakfast...

[ktulu]

Estelle Getty passed away early tuesday at her home. She was 84.

[Big Wallaby]

A great actress indeed. Shameless when it came to a joke.

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

Too sad, she was great in delivering the punch lines.

I thought that she was much older than 84.

[BRWombat]

Too sad, she was great in delivering the punch lines.

I thought that she was much older than 84.

I seem to recall that she was not even the oldest of the "Golden Girls." She just played a much older character.

[Mayonnaise]

That's true... she was the second to youngest. Only Rue Mclanahan (Blanche) was younger than her.

Oh Ma.

8^(

[Rob562]

That's true... she was the second to youngest. Only Rue Mclanahan (Blanche) was younger than her.

Oh Ma.

8^(

She was even a year younger than Bea Arthur, who played her daughter.

Though being younger than the character she played did allow her to take the white wig off a few times and play a younger version of herself in flashbacks. In those instances, because Bea couldn't do that same thing they had to have a different actress play a younger Dorothy.

Speaking of Bea, did anyone see the parody of Sex in the City with Bea Arthur, Charlotte Rae, Sally Struthers and (I think) Katherine Helmond?

-Rob

[NessaMcTastic]

Aww Sophia. She really made me appreciate the closeness I have with my mom. And, much like Dorothy, I also theaten my mother with sending her and my dad to "Shady Pines." My mom gets a good laugh out of it; my father just protests that he won't be sent to a home.

Thankfully at 79, my dad's still strong and independent enough to live at home with my 68 year old (and still working!) mom. (I'm only 23 so I was uh quite the surprise to my siblings.)

[Purpura]

Estelle Getty's Sophia character reminded me of my own grandmother on my mom's side of the family... Both from New York with similar accents, though Sophia is/was Italian, and my grandmother was Austrian/Polish ancestry

[disneyprincess1988]

*sniff, sniff.

I was so sad when I read the news yesterday. I absolutely adore Sophia's one liners, always a laugh a minute. And if it wasn't for my college roommate that I had in 2004, I would have never gotten into The Golden Girls.

So with that, RIP Estelle Getty. You will be dearly missed.

[felinefan]

When the Golden Girls was first run, my mom loved watching it--she still watches the reruns. I remember one time I was working as a security guard at what was then a Gemco store in North Hollywood, and I got off shift and as I got into mom's car, she said " I wish they'd let you get off a little sooner--we gotta hurry and get home before the Golden Girls come on!" No, we did not own a VCR at that time.