# Estelle Getty has died at age 84 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402 "2008-07-22T18:17:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/1 "2008-07-22T18:17:55Z")
[Cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estelle_Getty) Thank you for being a friend… ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/2 "2008-07-22T19:05:15Z")
Sorry to hear it, but from what I’ve read death is a formality. She’s been mentally gone for several years. Some trivia: she played Harvey Fierstein’s mother in _Torch Song Trilogy_ on Broadway (the role played by Anne Bancroft in the movie) and it was a producer seeing her in that role that got her _The Golden Girls_ gig. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/3 "2008-07-22T19:29:34Z")
RIP, Estelle. You were a hoot. For those who like me had never heard of Lewy Body Dementia: > **[Lewy body dementias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewy_Body_Dementia)** > > Lewy body dementias are two similar and common subtypes of dementia: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and > Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). Both are characterized by changes in thinking, movement, behavior, and mood. The two conditions have similar features and may have similar causes, and are believed to belong on a spectrum of Lewy body disease that includes Parkinson's disease. As of 2014, they were more often misdiagnosed than any other common dementia. > The exact cause is unknown, but invo... ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/4 "2008-07-22T21:16:03Z")
More trivia- she was only one year younger than Bea Arthur, who played her daughter on _The Golden Girls_. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/5 "2008-07-22T21:17:50Z")
☹ I avidly watched Golden Girls with my mom through elementary school and high school, and I can’t really tell you why I liked it, other than to say that I loved Getty’s Sophia. I certainly was not their target audience as a pre-teen/teenager. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/6 "2008-07-22T21:40:14Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] Sorry to hear it, but from what I’ve read death is a formality. She’s been mentally gone for several years. [/QUOTE] Well, that sucks. She was a hoot. I wonder how the other \*Golden Girls \* are taking it? ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/7 "2008-07-23T00:43:03Z")
Sorry to hear this news, but not all that surprised. In a recent interview, someone asked Bea Arthur if there would ever be a Golden Girls reunion and Bea stated that it would be impossible as Estelle was in very poor health. We used to see Estelle Getty all the time in West Hollywood, going to Gelson’s Grocery Store (Mayfair back in those days) or just taking a walk in her jogging suit with a couple of younger guys (one of whom I was told was her son). She was always smiling and nice to anyone who said hello or recognized her. And boy, was she a tiny woman…which of course made it all the funnier that she was cast as Bea Arthur’s mother in Golden Girls. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/8 "2008-07-23T11:24:25Z")
She’s dead? Wow, I thought she’d live forever. It’s very sad but as others have said she was pretty much a vacant lot for the last few years so thise is probably a release. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/9 "2008-07-23T13:31:36Z")
Estelle was actually the 2nd youngest of the Golden Girls cast. Rue is 11 years younger, and Bea and Betty are both about a year older than she was. I’m going to miss her…Sophia was my favorite character on that show. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/10 "2008-07-23T13:54:49Z")
Picture it. Los Angeles, 2008… ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/11 "2008-07-23T15:11:54Z")
Farewell Estelle. ---
**Author:** ![freekalette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@freekalette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freekalette)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/12 "2008-07-23T17:02:14Z")
Damn you **Annie X-Mas**!! I was saddened, but fine with the news, until I came in here and read your OP. That opening line just tore me all up inside. 'Scuse me, I’ve got a bit of dust in my eye… ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/13 "2008-07-23T18:52:42Z")
I think I read a year or so back that Rue came to visit her, and after she left, Estelle said to one of her nurses-“She was a nice lady-who was she?” That’s so sad. I too used to watch the _Golden Girls_ when I was little. I still want to be Sophia when I get old. At least she’s out of pain now. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/14 "2008-07-23T19:14:30Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] Some trivia: she played Harvey Fierstein’s mother in _Torch Song Trilogy_ on Broadway (the role played by Anne Bancroft in the movie) and it was a producer seeing her in that role that got her _The Golden Girls_ gig. [/QUOTE] Not quite. It wasn’t on Broadway, but in Hollywood. And someone may have gotten her an audition, but getting that role was entirely her (and the makeup artist’s) doing. > [@](#): > > [http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/22/estelle.getty.obit/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/22/estelle.getty.obit/index.html) > > When she auditioned, Getty was appearing on stage in Hollywood as the carping Jewish mother in Harvey Fierstein’s play “Torch Song Trilogy.” In her early 60s, she flunked her “Golden Girls” test twice because it was believed that she didn’t look old enough to play 80. > > “I could understand that,” she said a year after the show debuted. “I walk fast; I move fast; I talk fast.” > > She came prepared for the third audition, however, wearing dowdy clothes and telling an NBC makeup artist, “To you, this is just a job. To me, it’s my entire career down the toilet unless you make me look 80.” The artist did, and Getty got the job and won two Emmys. RIP Estelle. Thank you for being a friend. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/15 "2008-07-23T23:07:39Z")
[QUOTE=Shayna] Not quite. It wasn’t on Broadway, but in Hollywood. And someone may have gotten her an audition, but getting that role was entirely her (and the makeup artist’s) doing. RIP Estelle. Thank you for being a friend. ☹ [/QUOTE] Ah- I recline corrected. 🙂 She was in the [Broadway production](http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=4176) as well however. I seem to remember an interview where she mentioned that before the final audition she went to a thrift store and bought a too-big handbag, then clutched it in front of her as if holding on for dear life the way she’d seen so many old women do, and that this helped as well. [Out of makeup](http://www.am770chqr.com/_Shared/CPContent/e072249A.jpg) I always thought she looked like she was separated at birth from [Judge Judy](http://images.forbes.com/media/lists/53/2005/ZIEX.jpg). I even wondered if they were related, but apparently not. ---
**Author:** ![phil417](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6bbea6/32.png) [@phil417](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phil417)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2008, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/16 "2008-07-24T07:08:07Z")
Am I the only person who has a copy of _Stop or My Mother will Shoot_? I loved that movie! Sly S. is so macho, but Estelle has him in the palm of his hand over & over again! Wonderful stuff! The magnum in her purse reminded me of Janet Evanovich’s Grandma Masur’s character. (Note: I raised girls, but moms of boys must have loved this movie.) Love, Phil ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/17 "2008-07-26T13:23:50Z")
Harvey Fierstein’s incredibly moving [tribute](http://www.nypost.com/seven/07252008/entertainment/theater/torch_ma_was_beacon_121425.htm) to his “mother” Estelle Getty. ---
**Author:** ![mrsspooky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/439d5e/32.png) [@mrsspooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrsspooky)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/estelle-getty-has-died-at-age-84/457402/18 "2008-07-26T20:56:44Z")
I love stop or my mom will shoot - Ive got it too Phil! Estelle was great, her ability to deliver such witty put downs was superb. I hope Estelle is resting in peace now.