Beatrice Arthur

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Beatrice Arthur, 1987

Beatrice "Bea" Arthur (born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922 in New York City , New York , † April 25, 2009 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American actress and comedian . As an established theater actress, she became popular worldwide in the 1970s and 1980s through the television series Maude and Golden Girls . In 2009 she was named a Disney Legend .

Life

Early years

Beatrice Arthur was born in Brooklyn , New York City , as Bernice Frankel, to Philip and Rebecca Frankelin, into a family of Jewish faith . She grew up in Cambridge, Maryland . After high school and junior college, she trained as a medical laboratory technician and volunteered for the United States Marine Corps , making her one of the earliest female recruits.

In 1946 she moved back to New York City and changed her first name from "Bernice" to "Beatrice". She studied acting with Erwin Piscator , who from then on also cast her in his own theater productions. A year later she made her debut in the title role of the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes . After that, she became a member of the Greenwich Village Theater, with which, inter alia in Huis Clos by Sartre , The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare , The Owl and the Pussycat by Bill Manhoff , Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme from Molière occurred . Because of her deep voice, Arthur was mostly cast for roles that were well above her actual age.

In the 1940s she was married to the writer and producer Robert Alan Aurthur , whose last name she kept the modification "Arthur" since the time of her appearances at the Greenwich Village Theater . In 1950 she married the future Broadway actor and director Gene Saks , whom she met and fell in love with while studying acting.

Work at the theater and television

Beatrice Arthur (left) with Angela Lansbury at the 1989 Emmy Awards

Arthur gained his first experience in television in the 1950s through appearances in performances at the Kraft Television Theater. With numerous theater tours through the United States, she soon made a name for herself as a versatile actress. In 1954 she got her first role on Off-Broadway in a new production of Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera , which for the first time earned her praise from specialist critics. In 1955 she appeared in the Shoestring Revue and received her first Broadway engagement as an understudy in the musical comedy Plain and Fancy.

With the Broadway re-edition of the Threepenny Opera in the same year, Beatrice Arthur finally achieved greater prominence among the US theater audience in her role as "Lucy Brown". In 1956/1957 she played alongside Sid Caesar on his television sitcom Caesar's Hour. In 1959 she made a brief appearance on the sitcom The George Gobel Show, as well as the first of her few film roles in the production Something from Woman !.

In 1961 and 1964, Arthur and her husband Saks adopted their sons Matthew and Daniel, which is why Arthur withdrew more and more into private life. In 1964/1965 she returned to New York Broadway and played alongside Zero Mostel in Anatevka . She experienced her final breakthrough in 1966 as the always drunk "Vera Charles" in the musical Mame by Jerry Herman alongside her close friend Angela Lansbury in the title role. Arthur received a Tony Award for “ Best Supporting Actress in a Musical ”.

With two guest appearances in 1971/1972 in the hugely popular sitcom All in the Family , Arthur found himself forever on American television. Her role as the self-confident, liberal feminist "Maude Findlay" was so well received by the audience that the producer Norman Lear decided to develop her own series called Maude , which eventually made Beatrice Arthur one of the most famous television actresses. In Maude were taboo topics such as abortion , alcoholism , depression , racism and pornography treated, which provided numerous controversy and resulted in some local TV stations for the temporary removal of the series. Arthur received an Emmy for her role in 1977 .

International fame

After divorcing Saks in 1978, Arthur withdrew from the public again. In 1981 she made a comeback on Broadway in Woody Allen's autobiographical play The Floating Light Bulb and appeared in the same year with a guest role in Mel Brooks ' episodic film Mel Brooks - The Crazy History of the World . In 1983 she made a new sitcom called Amanda, but it was not well received by either critics or audiences.

Two years later she became internationally known as "Dorothy Zbornak" in the sitcom Golden Girls . In her role, which is heavily based on “Maude”, she played a substitute teacher who lived with her friends “Blanche” ( Rue McClanahan ) and “Rose” ( Betty White ) and her mother “Sophia” ( Estelle Getty ) in a shared apartment in Miami , Florida , lives. Arthur was the second oldest actress in the series after Betty White. Estelle Getty, who played her mother Sophia, was born in 1923 and was transformed into an old woman for her role with the help of a wig and make-up . In one episode, Arthur played Sophia's mother, Dorothy's grandmother, in a flashback.

Arthur received an Emmy for her role and was nominated for a total of four Golden Globes . She also received a Bambi in Germany in 1992 . Then she had two guest appearances in the Golden Girls - Golden Palace offshoot . In the German version of the Golden Girls it was initially spoken by Ursula Vogel , then by Beate Hasenau .

Beatrice Arthur 2005

In the 1990s she had guest roles on series such as Futurama , Malcolm in the Middle, and Lass es, Larry! . In 2001, after several years on television, she went on a theater tour with her autobiographical show And Then There's Bea . She also returned to Broadway in 2002 with Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends ; the production was nominated for a Tony Award for " Best Theater Event ". This was followed by other one-woman shows, including a. her tour, An Evening with Bea Arthur , which received mixed reviews.

Arthur got involved as an animal rights activist and gay activist. She bequeathed $ 300,000 to the Ali Forney Center in New York City, which cares for homeless LGBT youth. In 2007, on the occasion of her 85th birthday, the artist announced that she was not born in 1923, as previously assumed, but was born in 1922.

Beatrice Arthur died of cancer on April 25, 2009 at the age of 86.

Filmography

cinemamovies

  • 1959: Something like that from women! (That Kind of Woman)
  • 1970: Lovers and Other Strangers (Lovers and Other Strangers)
  • 1974: Mame
  • 1981: Mel Brooks - History of the World, Part 1
  • 1995: My partner with the hot bride ( For Better or Worse )

Television films

TV Shows

  • 1951: Once Upon a Tune
  • 1951–1953: Studio One (3 episodes)
  • 1951–1958: Kraft Television Theater (8 episodes)
  • 1956-1957: Caesar's Hour
  • 1956: Washington Square
  • 1963: The Sid Caesar Show
  • 1972-1978: Maude
  • 1983: Amanda's quiet house ( Amanda's )
  • 1985–1992: Golden Girls (The Golden Girls)
  • 1992: Golden Palace (The Golden Palace , 2 episodes)
  • 1997: Always Trouble with Dave ( Dave's World , 3 episodes)
  • 2000: Malcolm in the Middle (1 episode)

Broadway

  • 1955/56: Plain and Fancy
  • 1955: The Threepenny Opera
  • 1955: Seventh Heaven
  • 1957: Nature's Way
  • 1964/65: Anatevka
  • 1966/67: Mame
  • 1981: The Floating Light Bulb
  • 1996: Angela Lansbury - A Celebration (benefit concert)
  • 2002: Bea Arthur on Broadway

Awards

  • 1992: Bambi: Audience Award for Golden Girls
  • 2009: Award for Disney Legend

Emmy

  • Awards
1977: Outstanding leading actress in a comedy series (Maude)
1988: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (Golden Girls)
  • Nominations
1973: Outstanding leading actress in a comedy series (Maude)
1974: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (Maude)
1976: Outstanding leading actress in a comedy series (Maude)
1978: Outstanding leading actress in a comedy series (Maude)
1978: Outstanding supporting actress in variety or music (Laugh-In)
1986: Outstanding leading actress in a comedy series (Golden Girls)
1987: Outstanding leading actress in a comedy series (Golden Girls)
1989: Outstanding leading actress in a comedy series (Golden Girls)
2000: Outstanding guest actress in a comedy series (Malcolm in the middle)

Golden Globe Award

  • Nominations
1973: Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical (Maude)
1974: Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical (Maude)
1975: Best Supporting Actress (Mame)
1976: Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical (Maude)
1978: Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical (Maude)
1986: Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical (Golden Girls)
1987: Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical (Golden Girls)
1988: Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical (Golden Girls)
1989: Best Actress in a Series - Comedy or Musical (Golden Girls)

Tony Award

1966: Best Supporting Actress in a Musical (Mame)

Web links

Commons : Beatrice Arthur  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 86-year-old succumbed to cancer: 'Golden Girl' Bea Arthur died. (No longer available online.) In: rp-online.de. April 25, 2009, archived from the original on April 28, 2009 ; accessed on August 24, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rp-online.de
  2. ↑ Haaretz Service: 'Golden Girls' star Bea Arthur dies aged 86. In: haaretz.com. April 26, 2009, accessed August 24, 2015 .
  3. ↑ "Golden Girl" star: Bea Arthur is dead. In: Bunte.de. April 25, 2009, accessed August 24, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e entry in the Golden Girls forum
personal data
SURNAME Arthur, Beatrice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frankel, Bernice (maiden name); Bea (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City , New York , United States
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 2009
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States