The Q Guide to The Golden Girls
What do gay men and four over-50 women from Miami have in common? Though you’d Instinctively you say nothing, then you realize there are four women - named Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia, better known and loved as "The Golden Girls".
In the new book The Q Guide to The Golden Girls author Jim Colucci tackles the love-affair gays and lesbians have had with the show since it’s inception, all the while taking the reader through a voyage into the sitcoms beginning and meeting the cast and creative team that made it the huge success it still is.
The Golden Girls made its debut in September of 1985 in the long-dormant NBC Saturday night slot. From its pilot episode onward that show was a huge rating success, with over 30% of the viewing audience regularly tuned in to see the ’girls’ the show remained amongst the top ten rated shows on television for the entirety of its 7-year run.
Currently at home on cable television’s Lifetime network (since 1997), The Golden Girls still manages to draw in over eleven million viewers per week. The consistently high ratings so many years after the shows end solidifies the programs staying power, putting it in the ranks of I Love Lucy for it’s timeless appeal.
Colucci approaches the book as a means of documenting the programs history as well unearthing the mystery of it’s queer appeal; successfully providing a balanced mix of little-known information while recapping the shows highlights.
The book takes us on a journey that begins with the moment that served as inspiration for the show. NBC was preparing their Fall Preview at its Burbank studious and tapped two veteran actresses to host the evening. The women were Doris Roberts (best known as Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond and was then a regular on Remington Steele) and Selma Diamond (who was playing a bailiff on Night Court.) Playing on the enormous success that the network had with Miami Vice the ladies quipped, "did you hear about that new program about retirees in Florida...it’s called Miami Nice". The scripted line may have drawn a laugh, but unbeknown to anybody it would spark a thought in the mind of the network chief, Brandon Tartikoff. Soon the idea for a show about a group of older women who lived together in Miami seemed worthy of developing and the search for the perfect actresses to cast began.
One of the guide books best features are it’s sub-section where the reader becomes privy to conversations the author has had with the series creators, writers, guest-stars and the girls themselves. This allows us to learn of the behind the scenes going on that no Lifetime special could ever inform us of. Offering juicy tidbits, like why Doris Roberts turned down the chance to work on the show, or legendary Elaine Stritch telling about her reading for the part of Dorothy to NBC execs, an anecdote she shared on stage during her Tony winning show Elaine Stritch at Liberty.
A fascinating aspect of the book, was what author Colucci refers to as The Golden Influence, which looks into how other sitcoms have followed in the ground breaking comedic structure that The Golden Girls introduced, utilizing the characters of the brain, the ditz, the slut, and the big mouth. Whereas classic comedy shows worked on a two-character model, the star and the sidekick (think Lucy and Ethel), The Golden Girls allowed the ensemble to each be stars, by creating specific stereotypes they’d play into. Instead of competing against each other for screen time, the characters would compliment one another. Would Rose’s off-the-wall St. Olaf stories be as hilarious if it were not for Dorothy’s annoyed reaction to them? The formula was quickly imitated by another hit show of the era, Designing Women before being adopted by the likes of Living Single, Sex and The City, Desperate Housewives and the Noah’s Arc (albeit the foursome here are gay men of color).
Though often considered the best cast sitcom ever, the guide book describes how initially Betty White was going to play the role of Blanche and Rue McClanahan was to tackle Rose. In the end, the fear of them being compared to the characters they had become known for (White as nympho Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and McClanahan as scatterbrained Vivian on Maude) led to the last minute change in casting, a decision that paid off. For the role of Dorothy, the script described the actress as a "Bea Arthur type," yet Arthur was not offered the role immediately; and again the fear of typecast plagued the producers who did not want Dorothy compared to Arthur’s previous television incarnation, the out-spoken feminist Maude. Estelle Getty was a relative unknown, the majority of her experience being on the New York stage (most significantly as Harvey Fierstein mother in Torch Song Trilogy off and on Broadway,) but her portrayal of the feisty Sophia (Dorothy’s mother) proved to be one of the shows best assets.
The Q in the books title means
Though always striking a strong chord with GLBT fans, The Golden Girls was actually headed in the direction of featuring a regular gay cast member from the on-set, a ’fifth girl’ if you will in the form of slightly effeminate house keeper Coco, who avid fans will remember from the pilot episode. Coco was played by actor, Charles Levin, known for his role as a gay hustler in Hill Street Blues. Though rumors of homophobia in the NBC brass did abound, the decision to cut the character from the show, ultimately was a wise one, saving the all too little screen time for the leads. In this section Colucci explores the character’s role, the actor’s approach, and questioning his ultimate elimination from the cast.
As fans of the show often do, he delves into the inevitable questions all gay men and women alike have asked each other: "Which girl is your favorite?" Which golden girl are you and why," "What is your favorite episodes." Posing these questions to a line-up of gay celebrities like filmmaker Craig Chester, comic Ant, radio host Dennis Hensley, stand-up comedienne Suzanne Westenhoefer, and writer/performer Bruce Vilanch; we are treated to the hilarious answers that abound as we read the celebrities answers while we think of our own responses in our heads.
The book features a delightful cover illustration by the talented Glen Hanson, and a foreword by Frank DeCaro; but ultimately the books best feature is the conversations with the ’girls’ themselves. Though there are no first-person accounts from Estelle Getty (who has retired from show business and battling LewyBodies disease) she is lovingly represented and there is no lack of information on her, and how she took the show by storm.
Perhaps, as the book suggests, what has endeared The Golden Girls to gay and lesbian fans is the shows underlying theme, that despite what if any role our children, parents, spouses or siblings play in our lives, we create our own family units by surrounding ourselves with people we love.
The Q Guide to the Golden Girls is author Jim Colucci’s gift to the countless fans who religiously stayed glued to their television set every Saturday night for seven years and those who still discover that four old broads in Florida can be very wise and effortlessly hilarious.
by Jim Colucci
Alyson Books
