The Golden Girls launched onto TV screens in 1985 and immediately became a hit with audiences.
There are probably a lot of things fans don’t know about the show, such as its unique connection to Reservoir Dogs, as well as how The Golden Girls actually came to be.
Fans have been comparing the Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That, to The Golden Girls. This seems fitting in the sense that both shows revolve around the life of mature friends and the antics they get into.
However, this comparison of a 2022 show to one from 1985 shows just how far ahead of its time The Golden Girls actually was.
The creation of The Golden Girls was actually a long time coming that involved a lot of effort from its creator to convince others in television that the show had a lot of potential.
Today, we know that The Golden Girls s a classic that has entertained audiences for decades that just can’t get enough of its heart and comedy, but the making of the show has a rich history in and of itself.
Susan Harris Produced 'The Golden Girls'
Susan Harris is an American writer and producer.
According to IMDb, she is best known for her work in the show Soap, which she used as a launching point for her career that then allowed her to create The Golden Girls.
Harris was a unicorn at the time in the world of writing comedy for television. Most writers' rooms were filled with men, as most of the shows on TV featured mostly male casts.
Women were not expected to be funny, and even if they were, it wasn’t easy for them to find work as a writer.
Harris managed to overcome many barriers at the time and would go on to create, write, and executive produce many TV shows, including Maude, The Partridge Family, and Benson.
Billy Crystal once called her, “the first genius I had ever met.”
Susan Harris Signs On To ‘The Golden Girls’
In 1985, NBC was looking for a writer to create a show about older women living in Miami. The pitch idea came from a sketch promoting a much different show than The Golden Girls;Miami Vice.
NBC brought the idea to its team of writers; however, a basically all-male writers' room was not excited to be handed the opportunity to write a show all about women, let alone ‘older women’.
Luckily for the world, Paul Witt was in that writers’ room.
“I was sitting with another writer when [NBC executive] Warren Littlefield gave us this idea about older women, and this writer said, ‘I don’t write old people,’” Witt recalls in an interview with the Emmy’s. “I said, ‘I know someone who would be interested.’’’
That someone was Susan Harris.
Harris had a unique quirk about her as a writer; she didn’t pitch ideas, she just wrote stories. This broke the rules for members of the writers’ room at the time, but Harris knew her strengths were as a storyteller, not as a pitch-creator.
This trait is what helped the stars align in the creation of The Golden Girls.
“When Paul told me ‘older women,’ I was thinking women in their 70s,” Harris said in the same article. “I love writing older people because they have stories to tell. Of course, when the network was saying older, they were thinking women in their 40s.”
Harris didn’t think women in their 40s were old enough and decided to push the envelope further.
Later, Harris wrote the pilot episode for The Golden Girls, and execs knew it was going to be a hit.
“When we previewed The Golden Girls or 900 people in New York, I saw these people roaring with laughter,” said Danny Thomas in an interview with the Emmy's.
At the screening, director Bruce Paltrow said, “You have a perfect pilot here.”
At the time, they probably didn’t know that the show would air from 1985 to 1992, go on to have 177episodes, and be Susan Harris’ first hit.
An Emmy-Winning Cast
‘The Golden Girls’ would be nothing without the perfect casting of quirky characters.
Estelle Getty, who plays Dorthy’s mother, Sophia Petrillo, in the show was actually the first to be cast after wowing producers in her off-broadway role in the Torch Song Trilogy.
Allegedly, she took the role because she believed that she would not get another chance to act on television at her age.
Harris had worked with both Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan in Maude, and McClanahan and Betty White had worked with each other in a previously canceled sitcom on NBC.
White and McClanahan came in together for their auditions and switched roles with each other at the last minute, which ultimately lead to Betty White becoming the small town Rose Nylund, and Rue McClanahan becoming the sultry Blanche Devereaux.
Bea Arthur was the final Golden Girl to be cast despite Harris writing the role of Dorothy Zbornak with her in mind. After she was recruited by McClanahan for the project, The Golden Girls as off to the races.
Fans may not know that all four actresses on The Golden Girls on Emmys for their individual performances in the sitcom. More importantly, The Golden Girls is one of four sitcoms in history to ever achieve that feat.
In addition, the show itself won two Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series.
'Golden Girls' Tackled Serious Issues
‘The Golden Girls’ was decades ahead of its time in terms of content covered in the series.
The show addressed topics such as abortion, gay marriage, sexual harassment, and AIDS, which were not often brought to the small screen since they were deemed inappropriate.
“Susan was aware of both the sexism and the ageism in the industry,” Paul Witt said in his Emmy interview. “And she tackled it head-on with this show.”
Susan Harris broke all the rules as a comedy writer during her time on television. She made a show that was created by women, written about women, and featured an all-female ensemble cast.
She addressed women’s issues, shook up the television world, and surpassed all expectations. Without her and her determination, there would be no The Golden Girls, and there would surely be fewer female-lead TV shows in the world today.
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