Posted by Maddox Elms in Celebrity | 0 Comments
‘Golden Girl’ Rue McClanahan dies at 76
Posted by Maddox Elms in Celebrity
The Golden Girls: Rue McClanahan, second from right. From left, Estelle Getty, Bea Arthur and Betty White.
Rue McClanahan died Thursday morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 76.
She was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in Healdton, Oklahoma, with parents building contractor William McClanahan and Dreda Rheua-Nell, a beautician. She graduated with flying colors from the University of Tulsa with a degree in German and theater arts.
The Emmy-winning actress had a long and successful acting career which began in 1972 in CBS’s Maude. But she made that leap to stardom by bringing life to the sexually-liberated and man-eater Southern belle Blanche Devereaux on the hit TV series, The Golden Girls.
Golden Girls ran on NBC from 1985 to 1992 and also starred Bea Arthur, Betty White and Estelle Getty. The iconic show is a runaway hit that smashed through the sitcom pattern by focusing on the quirks of four aging women living together in Miami.
Golden Girls aimed to show “that when people mature, they add layers,” McClanahan in an interview in 1985. “They don’t turn into other creatures. The truth is we all still have our child, our adolescent and our young woman living in us.”
McClanahan had undergone treatment for breast cancer in 1997, lectured to cancer support groups on “aging gracefully.” And in 2009, she had heart bypass surgery.
The Logo network said it would replay all episodes of Sordid Lives, her last TV series, on Sunday. Whilst the We TV cable network said it would honor McClanahan with a marathon of Golden Girls episodes on Friday night.
(Photo Credit: NBC)
