LOS ANGELES
Estelle Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success before landing a role of a lifetime in 1985 as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's The Golden Girls, has died. She was 84.
Getty, who suffered from advanced dementia, died yesterday at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica.
"Estelle always wanted to be an actress, and she achieved that goal beyond her dreams," former Golden Girls co-star Rue McClanahan said. "Don't feel sad about her passing. She will always be with us in her crowning achievement, Sophia."
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 did not look old enough to play 80.
"I could understand that," she said a year after the show began. "I walk fast, I move fast, I talk fast."
But she came prepared for the third audition, 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.
The Golden Girls culminated a long struggle for success during which Getty worked low-paying office jobs as she tried to make it as a stage actress.
"I knew I could be seduced by success in another field, so I'd say, ‘Don't promote me, please,'" she said.
She also appeared in small parts in a handful of films and TV movies during that time, including Tootsie, Deadly Force and Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story.
After her success in Golden Girls, other roles came her way. She played Cher's mother in Mask, Sylvester Stallone's in Stop or My Mom Will Shoot and Barry Manilow's in the TV film Copacabana. Other credits included Mannequin and Stuart Little.
In addition to her son Carl, Getty is survived by son Barry Gettleman of Miami; a brother, David Scher of London; and a sister, Rosilyn Howard of Las Vegas.
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