Bea Arthur
Beatrice Arthur (born Bernice Frankel; May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009) was an American actress, comedian, and singer. She began her career on stage in 1947, attracting critical acclaim before achieving worldwide recognition for her work on television beginning in the 1970s as Maude Findlay in the popular sitcoms All in the Family (1971–1972) and Maude (1972–1978) and later in the 1980s and 1990s as Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls (1985–1992).
Bea Arthur
April 25, 2009 (aged 86)
Beatrice Arthur
- Actress
- comedian
1947–2008
2
1943–1945
Arthur won several accolades throughout her career, beginning with the 1966 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for playing Vera Charles in Mame. She won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1977 for Maude and 1988 for The Golden Girls. Arthur has received the third most nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series with nine; after Julia Louis-Dreyfus (11) and Mary Tyler Moore (10). Arthur was inducted into the academy's Television Hall of Fame in 2008.[1]
Arthur's film appearances include Lovers and Other Strangers (1970) and the film version of Mame (1974). In 2002, she starred in the one-woman show Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends. An obituary described Arthur as "the tall, deep-voiced actress whose razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star."[2]
Early life, family, education and military service[edit]
Bernice Frankel was born on May 13, 1922, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, to Rebecca (née Pressner, born in Austria) and Philip Frankel (born in Poland).[3][4] Arthur was raised in a Jewish home with her older sister Gertrude and younger sister Marian (1926–2014).[5]
In 1933, the Frankel family relocated to Cambridge, Maryland, where her parents subsequently operated a women's clothing shop. At age 16, Beatrice developed a serious condition, coagulopathy, in which her blood would not clot.[6] Concerned for her health, her parents sent her to Linden Hall, an all-girls' boarding school in Lititz, Pennsylvania, for her final two years of high school.[6] Afterwards, she studied for a year at Blackstone College for Girls in Blackstone, Virginia.[7]
During World War II, Frankel enlisted as one of the first members of the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve in 1943. After basic training, she served as a typist at Marine headquarters in Washington, D.C. In June 1943, the Marine Corps accepted her transfer request to the Motor Transport School at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Frankel then worked as a truck driver and dispatcher in Cherry Point, North Carolina, between 1944 and 1945. She was honorably discharged at the rank of staff sergeant in September 1945.[8]
After serving in the Marines, Frankel studied for a year at the Franklin School of Science and Arts in Philadelphia, where she became a licensed medical technician.[6][7] After interning at a local hospital for the summer, she decided against working as a lab technician, departing for New York City in 1947 to enroll in the School of Drama at The New School.[6]
Career[edit]
Theater[edit]
From 1947, Arthur studied at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York City with German director Erwin Piscator.
Arthur began her acting career as a member of an off-Broadway theater group at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in the late 1940s. Onstage, her roles included Lucy Brown in the 1954 Off-Broadway premiere of Marc Blitzstein's English-language adaptation of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, Nadine Fesser in the 1957 premiere of Herman Wouk's Nature's Way at the Coronet Theatre, Yente the Matchmaker in the 1964 premiere of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway.
In 1966, Arthur auditioned for the title role in the musical Mame, which her husband Gene Saks was set to direct, but Angela Lansbury (who would become a good friend of Arthur's) won the role instead.[6] Arthur accepted the supporting role of Vera Charles, for which she won great acclaim, winning a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical the same year. She reprised the role in the 1974 film version opposite Lucille Ball. In 1981, she appeared on stage in Woody Allen's The Floating Light Bulb.[9]
Arthur made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1994 portraying the Duchess of Krakenthorp in Gaetano Donizetti's La fille du régiment.[10] In 1995, she starred opposite Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna in Bermuda Avenue Triangle in Los Angeles.[11]
Influences[edit]
In 1999, Arthur told an interviewer of the three influences in her career: "Sid Caesar taught me the outrageous; [method acting guru] Lee Strasberg taught me what I call reality; and [original Threepenny Opera star] Lotte Lenya, whom I adored, taught me economy."[32] Another source of influence to Arthur was that of famed actress/director Ida Lupino, whom Arthur praised: "My dream was to become a very small blonde movie star like Ida Lupino and those other women I saw up there on the screen during the Depression."[33]
Death and legacy[edit]
Arthur died of lung cancer at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles on April 25, 2009, aged 86. Arthur was survived by her sister, Marian Frankel Gray, and two children. Arthur's body was cremated, and her ashes were given to her family.[45]
On April 28, 2009, the Broadway community paid tribute to Arthur by dimming the marquees of New York City's Broadway theater district in her memory for one minute at 8:00 p.m.[46] On September 16, 2009, a public tribute to Arthur was held at the Majestic Theatre in Manhattan, where friends and colleagues including Angela Lansbury, Norman Lear, Rosie O'Donnell and Rue McClanahan paid tribute to the actress.[47]
Arthur's surviving co-stars from The Golden Girls, McClanahan and White, commented on her death via telephone on an April 27 episode of Larry King Live. On the Today Show by phone, McClanahan said she and Arthur got along together "like cream." White said "I knew it would hurt, I just didn't know it would hurt this much."[48][49]
Longtime friends Adrienne Barbeau (with whom she had worked on Maude) and Angela Lansbury (with whom she had worked in Mame) reflected on her death. Barbeau said, "We've lost a unique, incredible talent. No one could deliver a line or hold a take like Bea and no one was more generous or giving to her fellow performers."[50] Lansbury said, "She became and has remained my bosom buddy [...] I am deeply saddened by her passing, but also relieved that she is released from the pain."[51]
Arthur bequeathed $300,000 to the Ali Forney Center, a New York City organization that provides housing for homeless LGBT youths.[52][53] The center was heavily damaged in October 2012 by Hurricane Sandy,[54][55] but has since been restored and re-opened.[56] The Bea Arthur Residence, which opened in 2017, is an 18-bed residence in Manhattan for homeless LGBT youth operated by the Ali Forney Center.[57][58]