Legendary actress Estelle Getty died early Tuesday morning in her Hollywood Boulevard home at the age of 84, according to the AP. Getty, best known as the smart-mouthed Sicilian character Sophia Petrillo on the hit series The Golden Girls, had been suffering for years with dementia. The talented comedic actress struggled to achieve fame for 40 years, but her Golden role, which came in 1985, made Getty and her three co-stars (Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Betty White) household names across the globe.The Lifetime Network, on Friday starting at noon, will air 10 Golden Girls episodes showcasing Getty's Sophia. Until then, watch the montage below for some of Getty's most memorable moments. — Gina DiNunno
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Question: Who sang the theme song for The Golden Girls?
Answer: Cynthia Fee sang an abbreviated version of Andrew Gold's "Thank You for Being a Friend" for the show, which, as you know, ran on NBC from 1985-92 and starred Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty as four seniors living in Miami.
The song was a Top 25 hit from Gold's 1978 album, All This and Heaven Too. The singer-songwriter (a term popularized when you needed to do at least one to have a career in the music business) had a previous Top 5 hit with "Lonely Boy" in 1976 and, putting in time as a producer, studio musician and songwriter for others, has worked with such notable talent as Linda Ronstadt, Karla Bonoff, James Taylor, Ringo Starr, Brian Wilson, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Dia
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Estelle Getty was sadly absent from last week's Golden Girls DVD release party due to poor heath. Despite those rumors in the tabs, the 81-year-old actress — best known as Sicilian sasspot Sophia Petrillo — is not dying. However, she does suffer from dementia.
"She's out of it," her TV daughter, Bea Arthur, tells TV Guide Online. "Occasionally, she's aware... We really should have known back then [during the series' run] because, of the four of us, she absolutely couldn't retain lines. It was impossible. She had to use cue cards or a TelePrompTer.
"It was annoying," Arthur admits, then sympathetically adds, "but I'm sure that was the onset [of her illness], which we had no idea about."
Arthur and costars Rue McClanahan and Betty White have remained in touch with Getty, though it hasn't been easy due to her declining mental state. "It's so sad," Arthur says. "Rue has tried
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