HEAVEN just got a little more golden.
Beloved TV star Estelle Getty, who played a feisty, elderly mom to Bea Arthur (who was nearly two years older than Getty) on “The Golden Girls,” died yesterday at her home on Hollywood Boulevard.
Getty, who was 84, suffered from advanced dementia, her son told the Associated Press.
She was 61 in 1985 when she landed the role that would make her famous. Costumed to look much older than her years, Getty played caustic, blunt-spoken Sophia Petrillo on “The Golden Girls,” in which she shared a Florida house with daughter Dorothy (Arthur) and her two friends, flirty Blanche Devereaux (Rue McLanahan) and flighty Rose Nylund (Betty White).
The high-rated series ran on NBC from 1985 to 1992 and reruns are still popular on Lifetime, which plans a five-hour marathon of 10 “Sophia” episodes this Friday starting at noon.
All three of her co-stars released statements yesterday thanking Getty “for being a friend,” in the words of the show’s famed theme song.
“Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the greatest comic duos ever, and I will miss her,” Arthur said.