For the third year in a row, we have lost a Golden Girl. Estelle Getty died in July 2008 and Bea Arthur just passed in April 2009. Now, Rue McClanahan is now gone at age 76 but has left us with a lot of great memories.
Born in Oklahoma, McClanahan’s father was a road builder and moved the family around as he went from one project to the next. As a result, she’d lived in six towns before she was eight years old.
After attending University of Tulsa, McClanahan moved to New York where she worked as a clerk while looking for stage work. She landed parts off-Broadway in the 1950′s and made it to Broadway in the late 1960′s.
On television, she won acclaim by playing a wicked nanny on the soap opera Another World. In an episode of Golden Girls many years later, when the ladies are all sick with the flu, McClanahan’s character insists on watching Another World.
