The Bea Arthur/Betty White Feud Never Tarnished the On-Screen Chemistry of 'The Golden Girls'

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The Golden Girls was originally broadcast on NBC from 1985 to 1992 and has remained popular in syndicated reruns ever since. The on-screen chemistry between stars Beatrice Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty is unmistakable. However, there was tension behind the scenes between Arthur and White.

A Closer Look

"My mom unknowingly carried the attitude that it was fun to have somebody to be angry at," Bea Arthur's eldest son, Matthew Saks, told Closer. Betty White became her "nemesis," someone with whom she could be flustered.

"She was not that fond of me," White said of Arthur in a 2011 conversation, the Village Voice documented. "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!"

According to what Saks told The Hollywood Reporter, "Sometimes Betty would go out and smile and chat with the audience and literally go and make friends with the audience. Which is a nice thing — a lot of them have come from all over the country and are fans."

"I think my mom didn't dig that," he continued. "It's more about being focused or conserving your energy. It's just not the right time to talk to fans between takes. Betty was able to do it and it didn't seem to affect her. But it rubbed my mom the wrong way."

As Saks further explained, however, his mother and White, who lived close to one another, were at one point friends and even used to carpool to the show's studio.

Rue's Take

In an interview with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Rue McClanahan noted how Arthur refused to lunch with her unless White came along.

According to McClanahan's 2007 book, My Five Husbands...And the Ones Who Got Away, Arthur was upset that White was the first to win an Emmy Award in 1986.

Golden Still Rules in the Ratings, But...

Each of The Golden Girls stars, who have long passed away, eventually received the coveted Emmy accolade. That at least meant the actresses worked professionally together on screen which, in the long run, has contributed to the show's ongoing popularity in reruns.

Behind the scenes? That was a different story, particularly for Arthur. "My mom wasn't really close to anybody," Saks told Closer in 2015. "I'm not saying she was a loner, but she just liked to go home and read the paper."