I came across this photo while doing some research on Bea Arthur (more on that in a bit), and I was struck by just how lovely it is. It seems like it’s from the first season based on Bea’s hair and the calendar hanging on the kitchen door in the background. I haven’t been able to find an exact date on it, though. There’s just such a great candid quality to this photo that I felt like featuring it all on its own. Bea is caught in the middle of clipping on an earring, and the Girls are all smiles. It looks like they probably just left their makeup chairs, too. The expression on their faces says that they know they’ve already got a hit show on their hands!

So many articles like to harp on about how Bea didn’t really like Betty White all that much, and of course Betty herself has said that she knew she wasn’t Bea’s favorite person. Arthur’s son, Matthew Saks, has also discussed their clashes in personality and differences in on set behavior. But so what? It’s a little unfair sometimes that Bea gets singled out for being not as friendly or more no nonsense when it came to her attitude on the set. And it’s not as if there was any Real Housewives type behavior on set! It seems to me that, for the most part, the Girls’ relationship in real life played itself out on the show itself. Otherwise I don’t think we’d still be watching and talking about it so much! Their camaraderie truly shines in this photo. Maybe Supreme will find this blog and let me put it on a t-shirt…

As I mentioned earlier I’ve been doing some research about Bea Arthur lately for a paper I’m planning on writing and a couple of other things. Yes, I’m keeping specifics under wraps for now, but I will say that I’m having fun catching up on the Star Wars Holiday Special, Maude, and Amanda’s, plus lots of other recordings of her performances over the years. Thanks, YouTube! Her television special from 1980 is also quite a treat if you haven’t seen it before! Bea never wrote a memoir or any other books like her co-stars, but the details of her life are pretty well-known at this point. Nevertheless, I think her career deserves critical analysis that it hasn’t yet received. I really enjoy writing long-form pieces that place The Golden Girls in social and political context, but those take a lot longer to write, obviously. So I’ll be working on those things over the next couple of months, but don’t worry! I’m not going to stop posting here! I may try out some different post formats, though. Perhaps some shorter ones focusing on just one or two individual outfits. That’s how this blog really got started, after all. I would tweet photos while I watched the re-runs and comment on the fashion. I still do that, actually, but I’d forgotten a bit how fun it is. So, yes, I think shorter posts are in order! Thank you for being a friend, and stay tuned for new posts and other developments!