The Truth About Betty White And Bea Arthur's Relationship Off Screen
Sophia Edwards On-screen, they'd likely say, "Thank you for being a friend," but off-screen, their relationship may have been anything but friendly. As the only one of "The Golden Girls" still living, Betty White continues to give interviews and reflect on her life and career at the incredible age of 99 years young, as of this writing. In 2011, she spoke out on what happened when the cheesecake was put back in the Florida fridge and the cameras stopped rolling.
"She was not that fond of me," White said about Bea Arthur during a 2011 talk with The Village Voice. "She found me a pain in the neck sometimes. It was my positive attitude — and that made Bea mad sometimes. Sometimes if I was happy, she'd be furious!"
Indeed, even Arthur's son admitted his mother could sometimes be difficult to get along with. "It would make my mom unhappy that in-between takes Betty would go and talk to the audience," Mike Saks told Closer Weekly. "It wasn't jealousy. It was a focus thing... My mom unknowingly carried the attitude that it was fun to have somebody to be angry at. It was almost like Betty became her nemesis, someone she could always roll her eyes about at work."
Any "Golden Girls" fan knows that hardened Dorothy would often sigh, "Oh, Rose," when White's character showed her naivete, but you could always tell it was said with love.