By (author unknown), Scientific American – June 07, 2010 at 01:30PM
As a decades-long fan of The Golden Girls , I was saddened to learn of the death of Rue McClanahan last week. In fact, I think I genuinely shed a palpable, detectable tear, which is something I can’t remember ever doing on the death of a celebrity, with the exception perhaps of Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty. It sounds rather homosexually cliché, I know, but my partner, Juan, and I have gotten into the habit of watching an episode of The Golden Girls every night before bed. And along with the other “girls,” as we call them, Rue’s character Blanche Devereaux–the libidinous southern belle with an insatiable appetite for rich cheesecake and rich men–has become something of an imaginary, smile-inducing friend in our home. Fortunately, Blanche’s carnal spirit is burned forever on our DVDs. But the news of McClanahan’s death inspired me to read more about her in real life–well, at least to expend enough finger energy to flitter over to her Wikipedia entry. I knew she’d been an outspoken advocate of gays and lesbians, as well as animals, but I didn’t realize that her support for the former went all the way back to 1971. Just a few short years after the Stonewall Riots, she co-starred in a movie set in a Greenwich gay bar called Some of My Best Friends Are … as a “vicious fag hag”. [More]
