Sad news: Rue McClanahan has died. Betty White is now the last surviving Golden Girl.
Sad news: Rue McClanahan has died. Betty White is now the last surviving Golden Girl.
The first Blanche clip that comes up in a YouTube search is one of her best, a long scene from a two-part episode written by Golden Girls creator Susan Harris (you can tell it’s her because Rose talks almost exactly like Jessica on Soap; that “I hope he finds something wrong with you” line could be exchanged between the two characters easily). The episode wasn’t about Blanche, but this is one of her most famous set-pieces, and McClanahan plays it with all the energy and timing of an experienced theatre performer — which she was. Her most notable theatre role was as Lady MacBird — opposite Stacy Keach’s MacBird — in the notorious Off-Broadway hit MacBird!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54y-Mjxz9vw
One of her earliest prime-time television roles (after her stint on Another World) was in the famous All in the Family episode “The Bunkers and the Swingers,” where she and Vincent Gardenia are a fun-loving wife-swapping couple, and McClanahan gets the big speech about how swinging saved their marriage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl4nf2dTRqQ