Beatrice Arthur

Bea Arthur
Arthur as Maude in 1973
Born	Bernice Frankel (1922-05-13)May 13, 1922 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	April 25, 2009(2009-04-25) (aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Cancer
Alma mater	Linden Hall School for Girls
Occupation	Actress, comedian, singer
Years active	1947–2008
Height	5' 9½" (1.77 m)
Spouse(s)	Robert Alan Aurthur (m. 1947; div. 1950) Gene Saks (m. 1950; div. 1978)
Children	2
Parent(s)	Rebecca Pressner Philip Frankel

Beatrice Arthur (born Bernice Frankel; May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009), also known as Bea Arthur, was an American actress, comedian, singer, and animal rights activist. Her career spanned seven decades.

Arthur achieved fame as the character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family (1971–72) and Maude (1972–78), and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–92), winning Emmy Awards for both roles. A stage actress both before and after her television success, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Vera Charles in the original cast of Mame (1966).

Beatrice Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922, to Rebecca (née Pressner) and Philip Frankel in Brooklyn, New York. Arthur was raised in a Jewish home with sisters Gertrude and Marian Kay. In 1933, the Frankel family relocated to Cambridge, Maryland, where her parents subsequently operated a women's clothing shop. She attended Linden Hall School for Girls, an all-girls' boarding school in Lititz, Pennsylvania, before enrolling at Blackstone College for Girls in Blackstone, Virginia, where she was active in the school's drama program.

During World War II, she worked as a truck driver and typist in the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve, receiving an Honorable Discharge in September 1945.

From 1947, Arthur studied at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with German director Erwin Piscator. Arthur began her acting career as a member of an off Broadway theater group at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in the late 1940s. On stage, her roles included Lucy Brown in the 1954 Off-Broadway premiere of Marc Blitzstein's English-language adaptation of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, Nadine Fesser in the 1957 premiere of Herman Wouk's Nature's Way at the Coronet Theatre, Yente the Matchmaker in the 1964 premiere of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, and a 1966 Tony Award-winning portrayal of Vera Charles to Angela Lansbury's Mame. She reprised the role in the unsuccessful 1974 film version opposite Lucille Ball. In 1981, she appeared in Woody Allen's The Floating Light Bulb.