Like many of you, I’ve been trundling through YouTube this past weekend watching clips of Bea Arthur’s best moments from All in the Family, Maude, The Golden Girls, and Broadway. But the one below easily takes the prize for the most wonderfully strange video I’ve seen this year, Bea Arthur-related or otherwise.
Watching it is like entering some gay bizarro meta-verse where carefree socialites harmonically chortle about amyl nitrate, and U.S. television networks broadcast it into your home. Except evidently at one brief, brilliantly weird point in history, this world actually existed. It’s but one more example of just how singular a figure Bea Arthur cut into the pop culture firmament, and why she’ll be so deeply missed. What do you make of it, PopWatchers?
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I want to thank EW for all the classic footage us younger viewers missed. She was a phenomenal talent.
http://tvdonewright.com/2009/04/27/tv-tonight-monday-april-27th-2009/
Love it Love it Love it…Both reamrkable talents. God bless you Bea.
I’ve been a fan of her ever since I can remember…she had a way of making me crack up laughing..thanks Bea! You were such a light! r.i.p.
Amyl nitrite you mean. Amyl nitrate is a fuel additive.
Um… why no mention of The Star Wars Holiday Special?
WOW! what a class act those 2 were!
Thanks for posting this! What a great and funny lady. She will be missed.
Oh, my. This clip is astounding! Reminds me of the mid 70’s to early 80’s when it was cool to be doped up. Everyone in the music industry used to carry one of those small bottles of coke around their neck, and it was common place to see lines being drawn in bathrooms at clubs. Nothing was thought about flagrantly flaunting a joint at a public event like a concert or at a park.
Years from now, I wonder what we might be seeing as a gaff on our generational eras.
that was the most fabulous thing i have ever seen. yes, i’m being hyperbolic, but still. so fabulous. on so many levels!
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What’s great about seeing this is that I remember in the late 70’s, living in Port Clinton OH, I was obsessed with far away Broadway musicals. But I had the cast albums. This was a song from a totally underappreciated little musical called “I Love My Wife”. I was actually in a play when this Bea Arthur special this is from was originally aired. And I was so disappointed because the TV Guide (remember the TV Guide?) said they would be doing this song (Bea was married to the musical’s director Gene Saks at the time) and it being right before VCR’s I had to miss it. Thank you, Creators of You Tube. And thank you Bea Arthur.
I’m with you, Nick … my first memory of Bea was on the Star Wars Holiday Special. Terrific, terrific stuff.
“Years from now, I wonder what we might be seeing as a gaff on our generational eras.”
How about
(a) booty-slapping music videos and the hip-hop culture of sexual exploitation, which has mushroomed into gratuitous prostitution references acceptable even in polite company (e.g., “My mom just got back from pimping her new book on Oprah.”)
(b) the color coded terror alert system, which is today’s version of “Duck and Cover” nuclear fallout drills in elementary schools (while we’re on the topic, weapons of mass hysteria–oops, destruction)
(c) pants that demonstrate whether the wearer has started puberty
(d) suburban McMansions with three car garages that are only designed to last about 25 years before requiring extensive rehabbing
(e) most of the menu at Taco Bell
They make a good pair .
Nice Poster Duo…One big Queer, and if the other isn’t a lesbian, she sure looked like one..They ought to build them a great big monument, and label it, ” No Talent “
To puck 101, or the idiot who actually cares about other people’s sexual orientation, Rock Hudson and Bea Arthur were two Hollywood icons who were great at what they did…act. BTW, Rock Hudson was amazing- despite the constraints he felt he had to contend with in Hollywood at the time – and Bea Arthur was an outstanding feminist role model for those of us women old enough to have actually been around at the time to appreciate the barriers she broke on “All in the Family” and “Maude”. What she did may seem old hat now, but that’s only because years ago women like her helped to break new ground and pave the way for women today. I will deeply miss her.
You’re an idiot puck….great fun. Loved both of these talents
Talk about a great moment. Glad that YouTube exists so that people from my generation can get to see them.
It’s funny, I grew up watching Golden Girls in syndication (and 99% of the jokes went over my head). Watching it again now, it strikes me how sharp the writing was- and just how much they got away with material-wise because the main characters were all older women.
I’m definitely enjoying getting to take a second look at her career!
Miss her? Come on, there’s nothing to miss.
I, too, saw this over the weekend and enjoyed (but wondered about) it. Was it from one of those Bob Hope shows I dimly remember from the mid 1970s? It’s like they’re channeling Cole Porter, and it’s awesome.
I will miss Bea; she had a lot of talent and pluck. And would do anything for a laugh — a quality I adore.
Owen, I should have read your comment first.
Puck101 and Geminate should find one another and hook up, as neither has any appreciation of talent or charisma.
Ah the good ole days when you could poke fun and folks would laugh because they new it was a joke. This looks like it was part of some variety show that were so common then.
http://open.salon.com/blog/spellitlikethis/2009/04/25/unabashedly_queer_lifetime_achievement_bea_arthur_1922-2009
http://open.salon.com/blog/spellitlikethis/2009/04/25/unabashedly_queer_lifetime_achievement_bea_arthur_1922-2009
This clip is from the “Beatrice Arthur Special” broadcast in 1980, starring BA, Rock, Melba Moore and Wayland Flowers. The song is from the 1977 Broadway musical, “I Love My Wife” by Cy Coleman — a peculiar musical about wife swapping in Trenton NJ.
Reading over the weekend about Bea Arthur’s Passing- I wondered about “Bill Macy” (who played her Husband in Maude). I met him several times as he liked to play Poker at a favorite LA spot-this was about 8 years ago and I’m not living in California any more. Bea spoke at Sutter Jr High School in Winnetka California when I attended-it was about 1970-and was kind of a feminist rights rally-but exposed me at a young age to the concept of speakers and how they conduct movements.
Bob
http://www.SwineFluFaceMasks.com
Loved it as it was quite fun.
http://www.sfphotorama.com
This is probably the finest memento I have seen in a month of Sundays! It is an ode to my treasured, tawdry past!
I loved her humor as mine has been known to be dry/sarcastic as well. I feel like a sister of mine is gone as I have watched Bea over my lifetime. To her family, my heart aches as I’m sure your heart aches. I too suffered from cancer (although breast cancer). Any form is terrible. My thoughts and prayers are with you but she being older, I’m glad you had her for such a long time. I will miss her as well.
To Puck 101
You must have your head stuck in a square box. These two people possessed more talent than your little finger. Bea was married once and as far as Rock Hudson, his sexual orientation is his business. He didn’t hurt anyone but died from it because of probably having to stay in the closet so long. Live and let live and go soak your head.