Golden Girls Marc Cherry explains the Bea Arthur taking a shit on the floor of Betty White’s room rumor

Cherry says a German publication printed Bea taking a dump in Betty’s room.

The rumor was a joke that the writers made up and it somehow got to a German fan magazine.

So that’s the reason why she hated her?

Bea was exhausted by Betty wanting to be liked?

I waited 25 years for THIS?

I'm far from a prude, believe me. But I always found this bit of business to be so gross and stupid. Grow up.

It sounds kind of like Betty could never do anything right by Bea. Bea had made up her mind already and very little could change the way she thought or felt about Betty. I have worked for people before who are like that, and it isn't a pleasant experience. They decide you are one way, even if they base it on next to nothing, and that view sticks. Perhaps Bea was just over the business, and working, and should have retired. I like Bea, but she seemed to have a very negative streak.

I think Betty was incredibly passive agressive and it got on Bea's nerves after a while. I'm sure Bea was no walk in the park, but I suspect Betty was a pain in the ass if you had to deal with her on the regular.

Leave it to the Germans

A simple clash of personalities. Maybe one killed the other in a past life. You know how some people you meet subconsciously remind you of someone else you like, and you just fall into a similar pattern with them. And some people you just cannot get along with. But as work colleagues these ladies dud what they had to do, their job, which they were paid to do. Now, i was once Involed in a show, and the lead actor could be a cult leader, he has sich a strong pull on people. I liked him too but he was more keen to surround himself with those who showed worship, and i couldnt. Slowly i felt so left out in the cold that no matter how much i eas paid i ran oit of there after 5 weeks. I often think stars who quit shows and Big money shouldve stuck it out but i get it, sometimes money isnt enough. Didnt one of the original stars of E.R. leave; and just b4 the huge money and syn rights were to kick in. Rumour has it due to Noah Whyle.

Betty White was a cunt and Bea Arthur knew it. Bea would travel with her own favorite vodka whenever she would go out. My friend was famous and a friend of Bea's and when she came over to her place, she would get drunk and walk around the apt. and say Betty White is a cunt, oner and over again. True story.

[quote] They decide you are one way, even if they base it on next to nothing

I'm with r8. It was probably just a personality clash. These two had very different temperaments. One was introverted, the other (extremely?) extraverted. White was very playful and outgoing when acting while Arthur was very analytical and methodical. As an introvert myself I can acknowledge that some over-the-top extraverts can test my patience. Not because I think they're bad people, but rather that they are just TOO MUCH to handle for me sometimes. And it's not that I want them to change. I just need them to keep my space.

I love that the Bea shutting on the floor rumor wasn’t a DL concoction but something that was actually conjured up by the Golden Girls writers! Hilarious.

Betty always seemed to be on, wanting to say provocative things for a laugh. You see it sometimes in outtakes. I can see it being exhausting for Bea.

thank YOU, R12 !!!

You hit the nail on the head!

You can see Bea being irritated in those clips when Betty is playing up to the studio audience. And, frankly, I'm Team Bea here...Betty was a focus puller. Yes, you want a good response from the studio audience but in 3 camera sitcom acting, you're supposed to be acting for the camera, too.

And, people have blown the Bea/Betty "Feud" all out of proportion...that it was this constant angry, tense, rivalry and hatred on Bea's part and it wasn't like that at all. They were just two very different people and Betty got on Bea's nerves at times.

I always found it strange that Bea loved Angela Lansbury so much and they were such close friends because Angela seemed very much like Betty. Very goody two-shoes type personality both of them. I guess Angela was a better muff diver.

No, I got the impression that Angela was very no nonsense and direct. She was basically a kind person (or so it would seem), but she seems like she was rather straightforward. Betty came off as overly nice and passive aggressive. I didn't get a passive aggressive vibe from Angela.

Betty wrote a book in 1987 called "Betty White In Person." She wrote A LOT about Bea, more than anyone else.

"Now, you would expect an idiot like me to have this weakness... and, God knows, I do. But the least likely person in the world, with all her wonderful professionalism, I have seen turn into a mess before my very eyes... my tall friend Beatrice Arthur. It doesn't happen often... maybe three or four times in the past two seasons. There are no warning signals, and no sound... but you know you are in trouble when you throw Bea a cue and get no answer. You turn and find that she is beet red, with tears streaming down her face, and she is going through these paroxysms, but making no noise whatever... just helpless little gestures with her hands. Of course, it is contagious and spreads like wildfire through the cast. We finally pull ourselves together to go on with the scene... but the damage has been done. From then on... (we rehearse for a week before taping)... every single time we get to that spot in the script, Bea is gone. It happens all over again, each time, and she is helpless... this controlled, dignified, consummate actress! By the time we get to the actual taping, she manages to get through... but there is absolutely no eye contact between any of us until we are past the danger zone. What starts it? Who knows what strikes a funny bone with anybody? One time it was a line in the script that hit Bea funny. The plot was: Sophia was accepting an award. We were all at this banquet where Don Johnson was to appear. He couldn't make it... but they introduced his clothes!! That may not do it for you, but Bea collapsed every time. What makes it so marvelous in her case is that normally Bea is not a laugher. She may enjoy a joke with a smile, maybe a small chuckle... she is more likely to react to a funny remark with a deadpan stare. It's just such fun to see her fall apart! Rue said that once when they were taping Maude they finally shut down for the afternoon and sent everybody home... they simply couldn't straighten up."

"My good friend Beatrice Arthur has a weak spot or two herself. Bea loves animals and gives a tremendous amount on their behalf. However one day on The Golden Girls our script revolved around a piano-playing chicken. Naturally, I for one was delighted that we were getting to work with a live creature. For the first two days we rehearsed with a toy... the star chicken wasn't called in until Wednesday. Came the big day, and when Count Bessie arrived on set, Bea turned pale as a ghost... and split! Poor darling, she hadn't said anything, but she has a terrible phobia about live chickens... all live chickens, not just ones that play the piano. Since we had several scenes to play together, they had to be staged so that Bea was on one side of the room, and Bessie and Betty were as far from her as possible. Bea is not alone in this phobia... Alfred Hitchcock made a very lucrative film about it called The Birds. It just came as a surprise to us to see what it did to Bea, who always seems to be in control of any situation. We were all very understanding and sympathetic. Of course, Rue and Estelle and I will never tease her about it. Nor will we make a lot of ongoing chicken jokes from here on out. Of course we won't. Certainly not."

"I don't even want to think about what happens to Bea if she passes a poultry truck."

"My list of fears keeps growing until I begin to wonder if I have always been chicken. (Sorry Bea!)"

Continued...

"Bea Arthur is a food maven... discriminating, knowledgeable, and appreciative... and a bit intolerant of someone else's lack in this department. We lunch together every day when we're working, and my unimaginative predictability drives her bananas. We have two regular places we go in the lunchtime allotted, and she knows if we go to the Assistance League dining room I will have the tuna sandwich... if it's Columbia Bar and Grill, she can make book that I will opt for the hamburger and french fries... neither choice being what could be termed a breakthrough. Bea, meanwhile, is poring over a menu that she must have long since committed to memory, since we have been going to these same two places for months... but, somehow, whe she orders she makes it sound like an adventure!"

^^Correction^^ "when she orders she makes it sound like an adventure!!"

[quote]Betty always seemed to be on, wanting to say provocative things for a laugh.

If you watch the old Match Game and Password clips, you can see this. Plus, Betty was very competitive and liked to win.

Bea was the exact opposite. She was one of the many comedians who was funny when onstage, or playing a part, but somber and depressive when not. I'm sure that introvert Bea was envious of Betty always upstaging her offscreen.

[quote] The rumor was a joke that the writers made up and it somehow got to a German fan magazine

Poo jokes from Germans? Who’d a thunk it?

Golden Girls wasn't a very happy period in Bea's life. She had lost several of her closest Hollywood gay male friends to AIDS (including Rock Hudson) around the time of the debut and first season. Her mother also passed during this period. Plus, she was playing a woman whose husband had left her for a younger woman, which was exactly what had happened to her in real life. Taping nights were a mess because Estelle had started battling what would years later be known as Lewy Body Dementia, and they would often have to stay late in the night to redo her scenes. I certainly don't think she hated Betty (Rue said they had dinner every taping night and Bea's son said they drove to work together often) but I'm sure Betty exasperated her to no end at times with having to talk with audience, joke around at every blooper.

Likewise, I don't think Betty hated Bea either. But I'm sure she grew tired of Bea's hot and cold behavior and would make passive aggressive digs to get Bea riled up and then play innocent. But I think Betty was the kind of person whom at the end of the day would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. And she made it clear she loved and respected Bea. She never seemed to carry a grudge.

In short, it was a job for everybody. And how many of you don't get hot and cold with your coworkers?

Is that an excerpt from your thesis?

Marc Cherry is responsible for the worst seasons of “The Golden Girls” including the excremental Season 7 and should keep his mouth shut on any “Golden Girls”-related information.

Um, he wasn't there for season 3.

There seems to be a divide among viewers who prefer the last seasons over the early ones or vice versa. I have come to a point where I stop watching after season 4. Sophia somehow turned into a sociopath which I didn't find fun to watch. And Dorothy being the butt of everybody's joke felt cruel at some point. This constant making fun of Dorothy's look was also cruel to Bea Arthur. So, no, I didn't find those seasons funny anymore.

R8. It was that bitch Sherry Stringfield wasn't it? She ruined my career!

r4 Did you even read the posts before yours? It wasn't true.

Who cleaned up the doo doo?

R25 I loved the later seasons more than the earlier ones. Bea looks a lot better. She was too skinny in the first few seasons and her hair was too short. I think she's sexy in the later seasons. Her relationship with Sophia also got funnier in seasons 6 and 7. Rose and Blanche are also funnier in the later seasons.

Bea did not look good with long hair, at least as it was styled on the GGs

Was it really her hair or wigs?

Was Rue the sweetest person in the world or what? Even she admitted Bea ran hot and cold but it’s clear they were friends.

Well, this doesn't answer your question r32, but I think she was the most talented actress.

According to a casting director, Rue called Betty a cunt

R31 Everyone except Estelle wore their real hair.

R29 I think Bea's hair looked best in Season 5 when it was blown out and on the cusp of being a bob. The first couple of seasons her hair is too butch and season 6 and 7 it looked like a helmet. I'm pretty sure Bea got work done around season 4. She looks noticeably younger in the later seasons than in the earlier ones, same with Rue.

R34 Rue never called Betty a cunt. They got along well and were still in touch right up to Rue's death. There's footage for Rue taking a phone call from Betty in the hospital before she had heart surgery. Rue did, however, like telling the story of Bea calling Betty a cunt.

As for the quality of the show, I think seasons 3-5 are the best. Season 6 and 7 have their moments but you can tell the show is running out of steam. The problem with sitcoms is that the longer the show is on the air, the bigger and more surreal the jokes become because the audience knows what to expect and the smaller humor of the earlier years won't get the same laughs. The thing with the GGs though, is that even in some of the clunkers there are still good lines.

Another hero from GG is the catering manager from Sophia’s almost-wedding. A perfect foil for Dorothy.

R35 Bea didn't get work done. It's all makeup. People often forget how makeup can completely change someone's face.

Bea had so much work done between Maude and GG she looked like almost an entirely different person by the time GG was on, AND she had a bit of a touch up in the first season to change her appearance a bit more.

R15 anyone who has a problem with someone else being overly nice is a total fucking cunt. Theey should own up to that and keep their cunty mouth shut about it.

[quote] I think Bea's hair looked best in Season 5 when it was blown out and on the cusp of being a bob.

Congratulations on writing the gayest sentence ever written.

I met Bea shortly after GG ended. I'm sure she thought I was going to be talking about that show but instead told her how much I loved Maude and my entire high school used to watch it. Bea almost started crying. She said what a lovely thing it was to say and she said it was the most wonderful experience of her career. In retrospect, on Maude, she looked like the proverbial shit on Betty White's floor, but it was a master class on acting and no doubt, Bea loved being the star.

R41 Bea didn't look like shit on Maude.

She looked so bad, it was said shit looked like Bea

[quote]anyone who has a problem with someone else being overly nice is a total fucking cunt. Theey should own up to that and keep their cunty mouth shut about it.

So says the Queen Cunt of Datalounge!

[quote]So, no, I didn't find those seasons funny anymore.

No one gives a shit about

Betty gushed over Bea for years and then threw her under the bus after she died saying that Bea hated her and didn’t know what she did. That says it all.

[quote]I always found it strange that Bea loved Angela Lansbury so much and they were such close friends because Angela seemed very much like Betty. Very goody two-shoes type personality both of them. I guess Angela was a better muff diver.

Nah, Angela really was that nice and she was English and a real actress, not to mention she wasn’t someone who was going to be intimidating looks-wise for Bea. Bea felt a kinship. She also gave Angela shit about who was wearing which dress for Mame.

I also know people who were good friends with Bea and she was always drunk and would rant and rave about Betty saying things like, “Well, that’s a very Betty White thing to say!” She also walked around the neighborhood barefoot. Joan Rivers witnessed Bea pick up their dinner and throw it off the table. Joan was shocked but then learned that Bea had a serious drinking issue.

R46 Because Betty was highly regarded and beloved within the industry, I think she was kind of desperate for Bea's approval, particularly because Bea never told Betty why she didn't like her. According to Jim Colucci, who wrote The Golden Girls Forever, Betty attended Bea's one woman show twice and Bea never acknowledged her. At a DVD release event, apparently Bea went out of her way to say goodbye to Rue, but ignored Betty who then went after Bea wanting to say goodbye. I think once Bea died, there was no need for Betty to keep up a front of her and Bea having been friends.

Despite any rumors of lurking tension, Bea refused to go to lunch without Betty every day. On Fridays, we had dinner in our bathrobes between the afternoon and evening shows, across the lot in a big dining room full of the cast and crew, where we got rewrites for the evening show. Bea would never walk across the lot to dinner until Betty was ready to walk with her, even if Betty made her wait, and they sat next to each other in the dining hall."

From Rue's book "My First Five Husbands."

R46 Actually Rue sort of the threw Bea under the bus a couple of times before Bea died. She admitted in interviews that unlike their relationship on Maude, Bea was cold toward her. Rue was the one who also in her autobiography (as R49 points), who confirmed the Bea/Betty thing. Betty actually had the good taste to wait for Bea to die before saying anything.

That’s unSouthern!

What do you expect from a former Marine?

R50 Bea was probably cold towards Rue on GG because Rue was fantastic as Blanche. She was better than Bea as Dorothy. On Maude, she played a secondary character. Everything was about Bea on Maude. Bea also felt threatened by Betty because Betty had a lot of tv experience and the audience loved her. Estelle wasn't a problem for Bea because she didn't have experience on sitcoms and she struggled with her lines. She didn't threaten Bea's dominance.

If that anecdote is illustrative of a pattern of behavior by Betty, I’m team Bea. Nobody likes to work with someone who’s constantly trying to score points with the bosses by throwing colleagues under the bus.

Who had to clean up Bea’s doo doo on the floor?

[quote] Joan was shocked but then learned that Bea had a serious drinking issue.

Oooh. A “drinking issue.” Well, la-tee-dah. I’ll tell what her issue was—she was a drunk! A fucking drunk.

And, baby—I oughta know!

Estelle.

I think Betty White was Sue Ann Nivens.

r58 = Rose

Joan Rivers said Bea Arthur was a loud, ugly drunk when she visited Rivers’ house for dinner.

Joan talks about Bea at 1:30.

It’s obvious Freida Claxton was modeled after Bea. An unhappy, nasty old hag.

Still, even if she was a pain in the ass, Bea would be the GG I’d love to spend time with.

Here’s an example of Betty’s habit of dinging her co-stars after a flub, only to be out-dinged by the usually gracious Carol Burnett. I suspect that Bea hated that aspect of Betty because she would both break character and “top” her co-stars when a flub occurred. I suspect it’s also why Carol went after Betty in the clip.

R63 You would either have the best time of your life, or the worst depending on Bea's mood.

Bea sounds like she was a complete cunt and a fucking weirdo.

She never seemed to be happy. There was an episode with a live chicken, and big surprise Bea didn’t like chickens, she tried to get people working on the show sacked for chewing gum or wearing a baseball cap back to front. She often refused to wear shoes despite having huge ugly bony man’s feet, imagine having to see those everyday. She was cold to her co stars yet insisted they have lunch together everyday on the set, I bet that was something to look forward to.

I think the only reason she insisted they have lunch together everyday was to ensure that Rue and Betty had no time alone to bitch about her. And the reason she always insisted that Betty sit next to her is so she didn’t have to look at her if she was sitting across from her.

R64, link doesn’t work.

Bea and Betty were fine the first year of the show.

Mayer trashed Betty in an episode of the show back in the 70s.

r67 Worked for me

r69 Who is Mayer?

R71, Don't EVEN ASK!!!