Break out the cheesecake: The Golden Girls premiered 40 years ago.
And though its four stars are no longer with us, the bond that Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty brought to the screen as later-in-life roommates Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia endures.
As do the stories about how Arthur and White’s strong personalities clashed in IRL.
“When that red light was on [during filming], there were no more professional people than those women,” series coproducer Marsha Posner Williams said in June at a 40th anniversary celebration of the show, part of the Pride LIVE! Hollywood festival. “But when the red light was off, those two couldn’t warm up to each other if they were cremated together.”
According to Williams, when White, McClanahan and Getty were ready to sign new contracts and keep going after seven seasons, Bea said, “‘No f–king way.'” (Hence the short-lived spin-off Golden Palace featuring Rose, Blanche and Sophia running a hotel.)
Yet stories of infighting be damned, finding out Arthur and White may have been the Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker of their day doesn’t make The Golden Girls any less rewatchable. And it’s not as if they didn’t have plenty of good times.
“We’re a matched set, you can’t split us up,” White said in her 1986 Emmy acceptance speech when she won Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of wide-eyed Minnesotan Rose Nylund in the show’s debut season. That was her only Golden Girls win, but she was nominated for every season of the show’s run.
The accolades kept coming, with McClanahan, as lusty Southerner Blanche Devereaux, taking the prize in 1987 (her one win in four GG nominations) and Arthur—whose withering gaze as Dorothy Zbornak was everything—winning in 1988 (she also went one for four).
Getty, who played Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy’s Sicily-picturing, octogenarian mother (despite being a year younger than Arthur), was nominated seven times for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy, winning in 1988.
The show won Outstanding Comedy Series in 1986 and 1987.
McClanahan wrote in her 2007 memoir My First Five Husbands…and the Ones Who Got Away that it was “awkward” to be pitted against one another year after year. Moreover, she sensed Arthur wasn’t nuts about losing to White—or to McClanahan—despite the Maude alum’s bigger paycheck as the most known actress of the group.
In her 1995 memoir Here We Go Again: My Life in Television, White wrote about what was an admittedly odd atmosphere on set the day after she won: “Estelle gave me a big hug and kiss—but she did it outside, before we got into the studio. The crew couldn’t have been warmer or sweeter, but the congratulations were all whispered.”
But, as the years went by and the show racked up Emmys, White wrote, “the first year’s coolness was never allowed again. We celebrated!”
When NBC was first casting The Golden Girls, McClanahan and White had recently been on Mama’s Family together, so they had an ongoing rapport heading into their new project. “We adore each other,” White said of McClanahan, whom she affectionately called “Roozie.”
White was originally considered for Blanche, a lesser leap from her two-time Emmy-winning role as the bawdy Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and McClanahan was wanted for the role of Rose, having spent six years playing Maude Finlay’s ditzy neighbor Vivien on the All in the Family spin-off.
But McClanahan, as she remembered in her book, thought she’d be perfect for the role of Blanche and was secretly thrilled when, in the middle of her audition, the pilot director asked her to switch characters. The next day they had White read opposite her as Rose.
Meanwhile, McClanahan said she was tasked with trying to convince Arthur to join The Golden Girls. The spiritual connection between Arthur’s iconic acerbic feminist Maude Findlay and independent divorcée Dorothy seemed obvious.
In her book, McClanahan remembered Arthur telling her, “‘Rue, I don’t want to do ‘Maude and Vivien Meet Sue Ann Nivens.’ Boooorrrring!”
However, once she found out that White and McClanahan had swapped roles, she was more interested.
Arthur told E! News in 2002 that she remembered reading a “brilliant” script, thinking “it’s funny, it’s adult, and I will get off my ass again and go to work.”
She added, “”I didn’t know it was going to turn into a cult [classic]. I just thought it was wonderful.”
Getty, mainly a New York stage actress known for playing the scene-stealing grandmother on Broadway in Torch Song Trilogy, completed the foursome.
The “chemistry was plain as a preacher’s daughter,” McClanahan wrote. “Our set was a happy one.
Yet she couldn’t ignore that something was amiss between Arthur and White.
“I love both Bea and Betty and got a huge kick out of each of them,” McClanahan wrote. “Their relationship with each other wasn’t all I wished it could be, but it never interfered with their work.”
As Arthur told E! News, “It was a brilliant working relationship, everybody. There wasn’t a weak link in the whole thing.”
So, everything was firing on all cylinders, professionally speaking, and any friction was only aired publicly in the form of gentle ribbing.
“Bea is a very, very eccentric woman,” McClanahan recalled in an interview she gave for the TV Academy’s Archive of American Television. “She wouldn’t go to lunch unless Betty would go with her.”
Even if White was late, Arthur always waited for her, and when the cast stayed for dinner while shooting on Fridays, they always sat next to each other. White also noted in her 1987 autobiography, Betty White in Person, that she and Arthur lunched together every day—and both she and McClanahan noted that Arthur was a foodie, to a fault.
White called Arthur “discriminating, knowledgeable, and appreciative…and a bit intolerant of someone else’s lack in this department…[My] unimaginative predictability drives her bananas.”
“Picky,” was how Getty characterized Arthur’s approach to food, reportedly prompting an annoyed look from her TV daughter.
“But it’s her total preoccupation,” White added when the cast sat down with the Washington Post in 1986. “It’s better than sex as far as Bea is concerned. Eating.”
McClanahan also marveled at how the four of them, despite their differences, all meshed so seamlessly in their roles.
White concurred, remarking in her book, “There could not be four more disparate females!”
And the showbiz veteran knew how women were often assumed to be adversaries instead of allies, especially in Hollywood.
“Sad to say, there are times when rumors are based on fact,” she wrote about feud narratives in general. “Knowing how much time and togetherness is involved in making a television series is mind-boggling to think of doing it if you disliked each other! Bad enough in a dramatic situation…imagine doing comedy in those conditions?!”
“I don’t even want to contemplate what the set of The Golden Girls would be like if we didn’t all support and respect one another,” White continued. “The fact that we also happen to be nuts about each other was an added starter which could not have been foreseen when the show was first put together.”
Moreover, White wrote, “From the very beginning, we were each thrilled by the professionalism of the other three. No one had to be carried. Whatever one of us served up was returned in kind…or better.”
She and Arthur were also bonded in grief early on when they lost their mothers within weeks of each other.
White’s mom died in November 1985 after a period of failing health. When Arthur got the call during rehearsal three weeks later that her mother had passed away, “she went home but then came back to work the next day, just as I had done,” White wrote. “We were a family, too, and somehow it just seemed the only place to be.”
During rehearsal breaks, the costars would normally just stay on set and chat—and one of them would inevitably exclaim, “We sound just like the Golden Girls!”
Both McClanahan and White recalled that Arthur, used to the discipline of the theater, didn’t love it when White—who in addition to sitcoms was a veteran of game shows—would “break the fourth wall” and chat with the studio audience in between takes. McClanahan understood Arthur’s take but would occasionally join White.
In 1987, Getty, McClanahan and Arthur were in on it when the show This Is Your Life—by then airing in the form of occasional prime-time specials—surprised White during a photo shoot set up entirely as a ruse. “In all truth, you can’t imagine what a test of friendship it was for them to go through all that phony preparation…which they hate at the best of times,” White wrote of the experience, which included a reunion with many of her Mary Tyler Moore Show co-stars. “I am eternally grateful!”
Off the set, however, the four ladies mainly ran in different circles.
White—like Rose—was widowed, her third husband (and greatest love) Allen Ludden having died in 1981.
Arthur was twice-divorced, while McClanahan had been married five times. (She wed sixth husband Morrow Wilson in 1997.) Getty was married to Arthur Gettleman from 1947 until his death in 2004—though that didn’t stop her from joking that she’d drink Cary Grant‘s bathwater should he ever visit the Golden Girls set.
Getty threw big birthday parties every summer, according to McClanahan, who recalled having a dinner party for about 40 that Arthur attended, while Getty came one time for a Christmas soiree. Otherwise, their socializing as a quartet was mainly confined to award shows and work-related events.
But they were comfortably chummy. McClanahan grew tomatoes and kept her costars supplied. They were all involved with animal rights and rescue charities, and McClanahan and Getty did PETA events together. McClanahan adopted her third dog from one of Mary Tyler Moore‘s brothers, White facilitating the connection.
When they were together, though, they really did sound like Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia—as Arthur frequently noted—minus a few key differences.
“Where are those two older women?” Getty wondered aloud while waiting for Arthur and White to show up for lunch with the Post‘s Tom Shales at a Hollywood restaurant. McClanahan was already there, so they chatted about the Golden Globe Getty had just won.
“It’s in a niche,” Getty said, “with my other icons.”
Asked if they saw each other much outside of work, Dorothy’s TV mom replied, “We all have such different lives, really. I really would love to hang out with them. But they don’t let me.”
Yet Arthur’s favorite part of the show was the dynamic between Sophia and Dorothy.
“One of my favorite episodes,” she told E!, “was where Sophia enrolled us in a mother and daughter beauty pageant at Shady Pines [the nursing home Sophia was thrilled to no longer be living at], and for the talent portion we did Sonny and Cher singing ‘I Got You Babe.’ I loved everything that had to do with a mother.”
It was only fitting that Arthur and Getty won their Emmys on the same night.
“Picture it. California. 1988,” Getty began, getting a big laugh. “This is such a big thrill and I know I can’t take too much time, but I want to thank the immediate world.” She thanked her family, friends, the GG crew, “and the reason I’m standing up here, the three most beautiful, generous, wonderful, talented ladies—my daughter Bea Arthur, and her two roommates, Rue McClanahan and Betty White.”
“At my age, it was a shock to my heart,” Getty told the Post about getting her first major TV role at the age of 61. “Not only was it terrifying to get this kind of job, it was terrifying to walk into a room with Betty White and Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan.”
“And don’t you forget it,” White joked.
Asked how they really got along, McClanahan said, “Well, I’ve gotten along with women all my life.” Added Arthur, “I have, too.”
“My best friends are women,” Getty concurred.
To which White added, “Oh, mine aren’t. I like to be with men better. But I get along with women.”
Arthur agreed that White liked men and dogs, while White acknowledged that she’d like it if the Golden Girls had a pet. As she went on about the idea of Rose getting a rabbit, Arthur gave a signature Dorothy eye roll.
When their six-year deal came to a close, White, Getty and McClanahan were all pleasantly surprised when Arthur (who had walked away from Maude after six seasons) signed on for another season.
But after that, she was ready to go.
“I thought, we hit it, we’ve really done it, and why hang on and do, just to keep it running, and to go over the same stuff again?” Arthur told E!. “We’re never going to—not be as successful, but it’s never going to be as rewarding creatively, certainly as during the first five years.”
After the show ended with Dorothy marrying Blanche’s rich uncle, played by Leslie Nielsen, the remaining trio signed up for the spin-off The Golden Palace, in which Rose, Blanche and Sophia ran a Miami hotel. Don Cheadle played the hotel manager and Cheech Marin played the head chef, but the show—on CBS, not NBC—was one-and-done.
White was the oldest of the four Golden Girls stars, but she outlived them all by more than a decade before her death on Dec. 31, 2021, just 17 days shy of her 100th birthday.
Getty died at 84 on July 22, 2008, having battled Lewy body dementia for almost 10 years. “Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the greatest comic duos ever, and I will miss her,” Arthur said in a statement at the time.
“The only comfort at this moment is that although Estelle has moved on, Sophia will always be with us,” White said.
Arthur died April 25, 2009, at 86 and McClanahan, the youngest Golden Girl, died at 76 on June 3, 2010.
White wrote in a 2010 update for a new paperback edition of Here We Go Again that losing all three of her costars, “has been very hard to take. When you work so closely together, for so long, and are blessed with such success, you wind up locked at the heart.”
As McClanahan wrote, “Things got pretty spicy once in awhile, but what mattered most to each of us individually and all of us as a group: the chemistry worked. We were damn funny. And we did it together. That’s what counts at the end of the day.”
And Arthur wasn’t the first or last star to leave a show while it was still a hit:
Mehcad Brooks, Law & Order
Mehcad Brooks shocked fans in 2025 when it was revealed he was leaving the NBC crime drama ahead of season 25.
Brooks, who joined the show in 2022, portrayed Detective Jalen Shaw for three seasons.
Jax Taylor, The Valley
Jax Taylor announced he will not be returning to The Valley for season three amid growing concern from fans about his behavior during the show’s second season.
“Right now, my focus needs to be on my sobriety, my mental health, and coparenting,” the Bravo star—who is embroiled in a nasty divorce from estranged wife Brittany Cartwright—shared in July 2025. “Taking this time is necessary for me to become the best version of myself—especially for our son, Cruz.”
Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim & Devon Walker, Saturday Night Live
The Saturday Night Live stars all announced within days of each other that they would not be returning for the sketch comedy series’ 51st season.
Longfellow and Walker each spent three seasons on SNL while Wakim exited after just one season.
Heidi Gardner & Ego Nwodim, Saturday Night Live
Weeks after Longfellow, Walker and Wakim left SNL, longtime fan-favorites Gardner and Nwodim also confirmed they would not be returning for season 51 after eight and seven seasons, respectively.
Sofia Mattsson, General Hospital
Sofia Mattsson exited the long-running soap opera in summer 2025 after seven years playing Sasha Gilmore. Her character left Port Charles for Paris.
Tracy Ifeachor, The Pitt
The Pitt star Tracy Ifeachor walked away from the hit HBO Max series after the medical drama’s breakout first season.
“It was an absolute privilege to play Dr. Heather Collins in such a groundbreaking season and piece,” the actress posted on Instagram July 10. “Thank you to everyone who has watched & supported Season 1 & shared their stories with me.”
Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us
While fans maybe should have been aware that the days were numbered for Pedro Pascal‘s Joel Miller, considering his April 2025 death was quite similar to how it unfolded in The Last of Us Part II, the 2020 video game season two of The Last of Us is based on, the moment his character was brutally impaled still stunned.
Pascal, meanwhile, who also died onscreen in Game of Thrones and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, took his game over status in stride. “I get killed a lot,” he joked to Entertainment Weekly. “I like to die.”
Peter Krause, 9-1-1
After what he dubbed “one wild adventure,” Peter Krause officially extinguished his role as 9-1-1‘s Los Angeles Fire Department captain Bobby Nash on an April 2025 episode of the procedural drama.
“Bobby Nash was written in sacrifice, and he was built for this,” Krause wrote in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter. “First responders risk their lives on the job so that others can see another day. His story arc honors them.”
Killing off the somewhat tormented, but beloved, firefighter was certainly a hot topic, showrunner Tim Minear acknowledged to Variety, “but after eight years, it just felt like, if we have any hope of creating stories going forward that have actual stakes, then someone’s got to die.”
Paige DeSorbo, Summer House
Summer just got a little less fun.
Paige DeSorbo announced in June 2025 that she was walking away from the Bravo series after seven seasons.
“You’ve seen me grow up over these last 7 summers. I’ll always be grateful for the memories, the community, and the opportunities this wild ride has brought me,” the Giggly Squad podcast cohost shared with fans on Instagram. “But like all good things (and some bad decisions), it’s time for this chapter to close.”
Camille Razat, Emily in Paris
The French actress confirmed she would not return for the hit Netflix series’ fifth season in April 2025.
“After an incredible journey, I’ve made the decision to step away from Emily in Paris,” she wrote in an April 23 Instagram post, alongside pictures of her and her former castmates on set. “It has been a truly wonderful experience, one filled with growth, creativity, and unforgettable memories.”
Reneé Rapp, The Sex Lives of College Girls
Ahead of The Sex Lives of College Girls‘ third season, Reneé Rapp announced she would be leaving the Max series.
“College Girls moved me out to LA and introduced me to some of my favorite people,” she wrote on social media in July 2023. “2 and a half years later—it’s given me y’all and this community.”
The show’s co-creator Mindy Kaling also confirmed Rapp’s exit. “We love @reneerapp so much and of course will be so sad to say goodbye to Leighton Murray!” Kaling wrote on her Instagram Stories before referencing Rapp’s thriving music career. “We can’t wait to see our friend on tour!!”
Kevin Costner, Yellowstone
More than a year after Kevin Costner was rumored to have unexpectedly walked away from the hit Paramount drama after four and a half seasons, he confirmed in June 2024 that he will not return to finish out the series’ fifth and final season.
Ellen Pompeo, Grey’s Anatomy
After 19 years as Meredith Grey, Ellen Pompeo scrubbed in for the last time as a series regular on the ABC drama in February 2023.
“I gotta mix it up a little bit,” Pompeo explained on The Drew Barrymore Show in December 2022, though she has already returned for a May guest appearance and continues narrating the series. “I’m 53, my brain is like scrambled eggs. I gotta do something new. You can’t do The New York Times crossword puzzle every single day.”
Henry Cavill, The Witcher
Batman vs. Superman star Henry Cavill revealed he would be stepping away from the Netflix fantasy drama after its third season—with the announcement that Liam Hemsworth will assume the role of Geralt for season four, and potentially beyond.
“My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures,” Cavill wrote on Instagram in October 2022. “Alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4.”
Jesse Lee Soffer, Chicago P.D.
Original castmember Jesse Lee Soffer turned in his badge in 2022, saying goodbye to his beloved character Detective Jay Halstead role after 10 seasons.
“To create this hour drama week after week has been a labor of love by everyone who touches the show,” Soffer said in a statement after his final appearance in the NBC procedural’s Oct. 5 episode. “I will always be proud of my time as Det. Jay Halstead.”
Damian Lewis, Billions
After five seasons, Damian Lewis departed Showtime’s Billions in Oct. 2021.
Emily VanCamp, The Resident
In Aug. 2021, it was reported that Emily VanCamp hung up her stethoscope for good as she had exited Fox’s The Resident.
Madeleine Mantock, Charmed
After three seasons of feeling Charmed, Madeleine Mantock, who played eldest sister Macy on the CW reboot, announced her exit ahead of season four in 2021. Calling the role “an immense privilege,” in a statement, the actress shared how much she “enjoyed working with our fantastic producers, creatives, cast and crew.”
Megan Boone, The Blacklist
Turns out Elizabeth Keen never will find out the truth about Raymond Reddington’s identity. Megan Boone chose to leave NBC’s The Blacklist at the end of season eight, and of course her character was killed off before she had the chance to read the letter that would have revealed everything. Boone marked the end of Liz’s journey in 2021 with an Instagram post in which she called the experience “a dream.”
Rege-Jean Page, Bridgerton
Season two of Bridgerton was down one duke. Rege-Jean Page became the breakout star of Netflix’s massive hit drama, and then broke hearts all over the place when it was announced that he would not be returning for the second season in 2021.
“I signed up to do a job and I did the job and then I did some other jobs,” he later explained to Vanity Fair. “That’s it. That’s the story. I wish it was more glamorous than that.”
Ruby Rose, Batwoman
Ruby Rose made her debut in 2018’s Arrowverse crossover and then starred in one season as the titular Batwoman (a.k.a. Kate Kane) in the CW drama—making history as the first lesbian superhero to headline their own show, as Batwoman came out of the closet in a major TV moment—before announcing her exit just two days after the season one finale aired in 2020. The role was eventually replaced with Javicia Leslie as Ryan Wilder, a new character set to take control of the Batcave in season two.
Later on in season two, Kate got a bit of a face swap and returned played by Wallis Day.
America Ferrera, Superstore
America Ferrera decided to exit Superstore at the end of season five in 2020, leaving Cloud 9 without a manager and the show without a lead. She ended up appearing in the first two episodes of season six due to the pandemic, and then when season six was deemed the end, she returned for the series finale to give Amy and Jonah (Ben Feldman) the happy ending they deserved.
Jason Ralph, The Magicians
In the 2019 season four finale of the Syfy series, Jason Ralph‘s character Quentin completed his quest to save Eliot (Hale Appleman), but sacrificed himself in the process. While the show does feature dead characters—it’s called The Magicians after all—Ralph did not return for the fifth and final season.
Emily Bett Rickards, Arrow
Ahead of the final season, Arrow‘s Emily Bett Rickards announced her exit in a poem of sorts.
“Felicity and I
are a very tight two
But after one through seven
we will be saying goodbye to you,” she wrote.
She did, however, return for a guest appearance in the show’s 2020 series finale.
Lauren Cohan, The Walking Dead
Lauren Cohan said see you later to The Walking Dead in 2018 following prolonged contract negotiations. She appeared in a handful of season nine episodes, but after a six-year time jump her character Maggie Greene was nowhere to be seen. Producers were hopeful she’d return in some capacity for season 10, and after her short-lived ABC series Whiskey Cavalier was canceled, they got their wish. Cohan made her grand return in this season’s 16th episode, which aired in October 2020.
Danai Gurira, The Walking Dead
Hot on the heels ofCohan and Andrew Lincoln bidding farewell to the zombie drama came Gurira’s exit. After joining the AMC series in season three as the katana-wielding Michonne, she made her last appearance in a season 10 episode, which aired in March 2020.
Nicollette Sheridan, Dynasty
A recurring player in season one and series regular in season two, Nicollette Sheridan starred as the iconic Alexis Carrington. She announced plans to exit the CW reboot ahead of season three in 2019 to spend time with her ailing mother.
George Eads, MacGyver
George Eads exited the CBS remake in 2019, midway through season three. At the time, he expressed his desire to leave and spend more time with his family.
Damon Wayans, Lethal Weapon
Fox’s Lethal Weapon is no stranger to cast exit drama. Clayne Crawford was fired from the series after the second season and his former TV partner Damon Wayans announced his plans to exit the hit drama after the 13-episode third season. “I’m going to be quitting the show in December after we finish the initial 13, so I really don’t know what they’re planning, but that’s what I’m planning,” he said in October 2018. “I’m a 58-year-old diabetic and I’m working 16-hour days… Murtaugh said, ‘too old for this.'”
Producers didn’t need to work on a replacement plan, though. The show was canceled at the end of season three.
Cameron Monaghan, Shameless
Ian Gallagher went to the slammer. When Cameron Monaghan left Shameless during its ninth season, his character was locked up. In reality, Monaghan was ready to explore new projects after nine years on the show. But, in a true TV twist, he went ahead and signed on to return for season 10 anyway and was present and accounted for when the show returned for its 11th and final season in December 2020.
