Posted on 04/27/2009 3:15:46 PM PDT by prismsinc
"God will get you for that, Walter."
Nobody could do more with these words than Beatrice Arthur as Maude Findlay on the marital warpath. She could slingshot them in fury or release them in a chilling deadpan, but however she delivered them you could be sure they'd hit their mark with a prizefighter's pop.
All the tributes that will be lavished on Arthur, who died Saturday at 86, will extol her impeccable comic timing. Her ability to detonate a joke, to momentarily harness a punch line before releasing at full force, brought her Emmy-winning success in two groundbreaking sitcoms -- Norman Lear's 1970s classic "Maude" and "The Golden Girls," launched in 1985 and no doubt making somebody crack up in rerun land as you're reading this.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I don’t know about Arthur personally, but the Maude character was a nasty abrasive broad. The model for the modern feminist.
Never really saw the two shows she’s most famous for. Did see a short-lived American adaptation of the great British comedy “Fawlty Towers”, with Arthur trying to fill the Basil Fawlty role - no actor could ever compare with John Cleese in that role, and Arthur didn’t.
The character had an abortion on tv, didn’t she? One of the first times the subject was discussed?
How does somebody over 50 have an abortion?
She sure did....and I agree with post #2!
She was not a “towering comedic talent.” A towering comedic talent can make you like the character even as he is a buffoon or oaf. Jackie Gleason, Gracie Allen, Carroll O’Connor and Lucille Ball are examples. Beatrice Arthur as Maude was simply irritating.
I do enjoy watching “The Golden Girls.”
I couldn’t stand Maude. Bunch of liberal horse sh-t.
She was a PETA activist as well.
“This country was ruined by Franklin Delano Roosevelt!”
That’s not what I saw. I got sick of her eternal male bashing and nasty put-downs which seemed to charm the feminazis. She came across as a miserable, aging lesbian, male basher. Don’t understand why she’s being lionized.
There are women fertile past 50, though I don’t think Maude was that old in the script. Incidentally, her co-star Barbeau had twins when she was 51.
The only two reasons for watching the show.
...and to think, had it not been for the GI Bill, she might never have become an actress....
This morning on our local fox station they did a segment on Bea Arthur and started with “Hollywood is till reeling from the death of one of it’s most famous commedienes” - reeling from an 86 year old woman that died from cancer?
From what little TV I remember in the 70s and early 80s, “Maude” was not a friendly face of feminism. It was certainly the opposite of the main women in my life then (mom, grandma). My mom and grandma like men. Both the men and women made fun of each others’ stereotypes and yuckked it up, instead of not being able to handle it. They accepted men were going to be men, women were going to be women, they’d laugh at the other for being what they were, and loved them despite of it.
I always thought she looked like a tall Liberace with more hair
You can blame Norman Lear for that. He was so very heavy handed with his politics in his sitcoms, and it has caused them to age poorly. Once in a while, I'll catch an old episode of All in the Family, and the plot will focus on some 1970s political issue that I've either long forgotten or never heard of in the first place.
By way of contrast, I can watch the Dick Van Dyke or Bob Newhart Shows, and still enjoy the comedy.
from Wiki:
In 1971, Arthur was invited by Norman Lear to guest-star on his hit sit-com All in the Family, as Maude Findlay, the cousin of Edith Bunker. An outspoken liberal feminist, she was the antithesis to the bigoted, conservative Archie Bunker, who decried Maude as a “New Deal fanatic”. The then-50 Arthur’s tart turn appealed to viewers and to executives at CBS, who, she would later recall, asked “’Who is that girl? Let’s give her her own series.’”[4]
That show, previewed in a second episode of All in the Family, would be simply titled Maude. The show, debuting in 1972, would find her living in the affluent community of Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, with her husband Walter (Bill Macy) and divorced daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau). Her performance in the role garnered Arthur several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, including her Emmy win in 1977 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
It would also earn a place for her in the history of the women’s liberation movement.[5] The groundbreaking series didn’t shirk from addressing serious sociopolitical topics of the era that were fairly taboo for a sit-com, from the Vietnam War, the Nixon Administration and Maude’s bid for a Congressional seat to divorce, menopause, drug use, alcoholism, nervous breakdown and spousal abuse. A prime example, “Maude’s Dilemma”, was a two-part episode in which Maude’s character grapples with a late-life pregnancy, ultimately deciding to have an abortion. The episode aired two months before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the procedure in the Roe v. Wade decision.[6] Though abortion was legal in New York State, it was illegal in many regions of the country and so controversial that dozens of affiliates refused to broadcast the episode. A reported 65 million viewers watched the two episodes either in their first run that November or the following summer as a re-run.[7] By 1978, however, Arthur decided to move on from the series.
That year, she costarred in the poorly-received The Star Wars Holiday Special, in which she had a song and dance routine in the Mos Eisley Cantina. She hosted The Beatrice Arthur Special on CBS on January 19, 1980, which paired the star in a musical comedy revue with Rock Hudson, Melba Moore and Wayland Flowers and Madame.[8]
After appearing in the short-lived 1983 sitcom Amanda’s (an unsuccessful U.S. version of the British hit series Fawlty Towers), Arthur was cast in the hit sitcom The Golden Girls in 1985, in which she played Dorothy Zbornak, a divorced substitute teacher living in a Miami house owned by Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan). Her other roommates included widow Rose Nylund (Betty White) and Dorothy’s Sicilian mother, Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty). Getty was actually a year younger than Arthur in real life, and was heavily made up to look significantly older. Arthur’s character, Dorothy, had a caustic sense of humor and was prone to making witty and sarcastic wisecracks. The series was a huge hit, remaining a top ten ratings fixture for six seasons. Her performance led to several Emmy nominations over the course of the series and an Emmy win in 1988. Arthur decided to leave the show after seven years and in 1992, the show was moved from NBC to CBS and retooled as The Golden Palace in which the other three actresses reprised their roles. Arthur made a guest appearance in a two-part episode, but the show only lasted for one season before it was cancelled.
RIP, Bea.
RIP Bea, you gave many laughs to the peeps!
She was a funny chick who did her job well, but “towering comedic talent” doesn’t quite describe her.
Each one to his own taste.
maybe the ref was in regard to her height..she was quite tall.
I agree. The character was boorish and unpleasant.
I assume that was the character though and not Arthur.
My mom watched Maude on reruns when I was a kid, I despised that show. To me she looked ancient. When I later saw Bea Arthur on “Golden Girls” I liked that character much better.
“Incidentally, her co-star Barbeau had twins when she was 51”
She had a nice pair, as well.
I don’t know about Arthur personally, but the Maude character was a nasty abrasive broad. The model for the modern feminist.
I was a radical leftist at the time of AITF, but I was always cheering for Archie when he came debated Maude. Very pushy broad indeed!
She wasn't nearly as feminine as Liberace.
Don't shortchange Bea like that... she was a lot more masculine than Liberace, too!
I was waiting for that name to appear! :-)
Color me a chauvanist but I watched for Adrienne Barbeau’s big boobskis.
LOL!!! very funny episode, Archie vrs. Maude.
There are women fertile past 50, though I don’t think Maude was that old in the script.
I only watched a time or two, but “Maude” was too much a PITA for me to stand more than that.
Exactly. A leftist archetype being honored for mainstreaming socialism, deviance and murder.
************************
the horror, the horror
I actually recall seeing that, since this thread went and dredged-up that carefully buried memory. Allow me to burn the image into everyone else's mind, so that my misery will have plenty of company:
Heyyy - wait a minute! I think that's the same outfit she wore in History of the World - Part I!
Oh. dear. lord.
The sad part is that she didn’t require a lot of makeup or special prothesis to fit right in.
Guys sure didn't watch that show to see Bill Macy's character get verbally beaten-down each and every week.
Yep. I almost added a parenthetical comment like so: (Bea's the one in the foreground) to express the same thought.
That may Bea, but she wasn't pregnant. Maude was. In the story, Maude was 47.
Take the same woman, the same supposed comedic talent and if she had poked fun at liberals instead of conservatives we wouldn’t even have heard she died. She was an average talent with nothing significant in her resume. She played a character who made an abortion seem like a positive event and she has been a liberal icon ever since.
” I only watched the show to see Adrienne Barbeau.”
Me too, and I could watch the show with the sound muted and still enjoy it.
God'll get you for that, Huskrrrr.
I liked “Golden Girls,” too. My father-in-law used to say his wife’s family was like having “Golden Girls” live in the living room - in Italian!
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