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May 13th, 2008 - Happy Birthday Bea Arthur!
By Allie | May 13, 2008
Beatrice “Bea” Arthur (born May 13, 1922) is a two-time Emmy Award-winning and Tony Award winning American comedian, actress and singer.
She’s 86!
In an ongoing career spanning six decades, Arthur is perhaps best remembered for her trademark role as the title character, Maude Findlay, on the 1970s sitcom Maude, and for playing Dorothy Zbornak, the divorced substitute teacher on The Golden Girls.
Love, Love, Love Her!!
Born Bernice Frankel in New York City on May 13, 1922, has a sister whose name is Kay and lives in Montreal. She soon moved to Maryland where her father, Philip, operated a women’s clothing shop. After attending the now-defunct Blackstone College in Blackstone, Virginia, Arthur became a medical technologist before World War II. She also served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Arthur began her acting career as a member of an off Broadway theater group at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in the late 1940s. On stage, her roles included “Lucy Brown” in the 1954 off-broadway premiere of Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera, “Yente the Matchmaker” in the 1964 premiere of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, and a 1966 Tony Award-winning portrayal of “Vera Charles” to Angela Lansbury’s Mame (she recreated the role in the unsuccessful film version opposite Lucille Ball in 1974). In 1981, she appeared in Woody Allen’s The Floating Lightbulb.
In 2008, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced that Arthur will be inducted into its hall of fame.
Personal Life:
Arthur was married twice, first to Robert Alan Aurthur, an author, whose surname she took and kept though with a modified spelling, and second to director Gene Saks from 1950-1978 with whom she adopted two sons, Matthew (born 14 July 1961), an actor and Daniel (born 8 May 1964), a set designer.
She primarily lives in the Greater Los Angeles Area and has sublet her apartment on Central Park West in New York City and her country home in Bedford, New York.
If you love Bea Arthur as much as I do, then you must go HERE!
Other May 13th Birthdays:
Zoe Wanamaker-Actress -59
Stevie Wonder-Singer -58
Stephen Colbert-Comedian -44
Tom Verica-Actor -44
Topics: Celebrity Birthdays, Wired Gossip |
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One Response to “May 13th, 2008 - Happy Birthday Bea Arthur!”
Comments
May 13th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Happy Birthday Bea. I wish I had been able to see Bea on B’way in all her glory. I hadn’t even seen her in Maude. I have bought Mame, My First Love, Lovers and Other Strangers, all the Golden Girls DVD, Maude and have downloaded multiple videos of her many appearances over the years. What an awesome woman. Too bad she hasn’t gotten the recognition she deserves from her peers. Who else can do comedy, acting and singing with such excellence. No matter, she’s still remembered and loved by hoards of fans who have had the pleasure of enjoying her inimitable style of comedy, song and humor.
Thanks Bea. You’re one in a kind