Gawker: defamer, the golden girls

And Now Your Friday Downer: No 'Golden Girls' Made It To Estelle Getty's Funeral

Seth — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:50:00 EDT

Uh-oh—don't let that crying kid on YouTube see this, lest we prepare for a tsunami of waterworks that could very well short-out the entire internet: None of the surviving Golden Girls showed up to Estelle Getty's funeral. Not even her own daughter. Inside Edition tracked down two of the three to find out where they were:

Bea Arthur, who played Estelle Getty’s daughter on the show, tells INSIDE EDITION she’s been grieving for years over Getty’s long decline due to dementia, and could not deal with the emotion of a funeral.

Arthur: “She’s been out of it so many years, not recognizing anyone. It’s a Godsend. She’s at peace.”

Rue McClanahan, Getty’s former Golden Girls co-star who is living in New York, tells INSIDE EDITION that she couldn’t attend the funeral because she recently had surgery.

McClanahan: “I’d like them to know that I didn’t {attend the funeral} because I can’t fly right now with knee surgery. I don’t know why Betty and Bea didn’t go, maybe because they, too, have said their goodbyes to her when she was alive.”

For those keeping track, that leaves the whereabouts of dotty Rose Nylund—aka Bette White—unaccounted for, but once she's gotten a hold of, we're certain she'll have a delightful story about an ancient Viking funeral custom carried over into modern St. Olaf culture that requires you to skip your fellow warrior's services in favor of a cat-neutering rally in the Valley.

Inside Edition

Estelle Getty's Death Reduces YouTube Eulogist To Puddle Of Tears

Seth — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:30:00 EDT

We'll admit to not having yet fully absorbed yesterday's news that Estelle Getty had shuffled off this mortal coil to the 1912-Sicily-in-the-sky. Stalled as we are in the early, "Why couldn't it have been someone from Empty Nest?!"-stages of the Kübler-Ross model, we hand you over now to YouTube video diarist fromthe60s. His lachrymal remembrance of "one of the funniest people I ever got to see on TV" is surely the most moving—if not the moistest—user-generated-video testimonial since Leave Britney Alone Guy beseeched us to leave Britney alone. We swear, without the courageousness of Young Gays Who Feel Too Much, there'd be literally nothing to do all day at the office besides work.

Rest In Peace Estelle Getty [YouTube via The WOW Report]

It's Hard To Picture It Without Estelle Getty

Seth — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Estelle Getty, best known for playing The Golden Girls's stroke-disinhibited Shady Pines-escapee Sophia Petrillo, has passed away at 5:30 a.m. after a long bout with Lewy body dementia. She was 84. Her son told reporters earlier today, "She was loved throughout the world in six continents, and if they loved sitcoms in Antarctica she would have been loved on seven continents. She was one of the most talented comedic actresses who ever lived." That sounds about right. We leave you now with this Sophia anecdote, and encourage you to leave your own in the comments:

Sophia : In Sicily, we never went to the doctor. We went to the Widow Scarpelli. Whatever you had, she had a cure for it.

Sophia : She was most famous for her green salve to cure earaches. One day, she gave some to Salvadore, the village idiot. He misunderstood the directions and put in on his pasta instead...The stuff tasted great, so Salvadore decided to market it. At first, things didn't go so well. Ear Salve on Pasta wasn't very appetizing-but once he changed the name to pesto sauce, it sold like hot cakes! Dorothy: Ma, you're making this up! Sophia : So what? I'm old, I'm supposed to be colorful.

[AP]