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By the time Jewish sitcom legend Bea Arthur left the hit show Golden Girls in 1992, she'd had enough.
"I started Maude in 1972; I finished Golden Girls in 1992. I really felt as though I had spent the majority of my adult life in that little box," she says.
Before tackling television, Arthur had worked on the New York stage in such major productions as Three Penny Opera, Fiddler on the Roof and Mame. Now in her late-70s, the Tony and Emmy-award winning actress has returned to her roots in a one-woman show that opens in Toronto later this month called Bea Arthur On Broadway: Just Between Friends.
Part-career retrospective, part-autobiography, her show, a collaboration with pianist Billy Goldenberg, is a mixture of Broadway songs, personal anecdotes, recipes and comedic bits.
In Toronto to promote the show before a three-week run in Australia, Arthur looks exactly as one might expect: pristine black pantsuit, full makeup and a shock of perfectly teased white hair. Though gently getting older, she hasn't lost her baritone pipes or lofty stance. Nor her candour.
"Tell me about this publication," she asks....