Estelle Getty Net Worth

Estelle Getty's Quotes

• Too many of you, my friends, are dying. Now it's time for me to do my part and help you. - on launching her fundraising for AIDS research in honor of her gay friends and fans
• I've played mothers to heroes and mothers to zeroes. I've played Irish mothers, Jewish mothers, Italian mothers, Southern mothers, New England mothers, mothers in plays by Neil Simon and Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. I've played mother to everyone but Attila the Hun.
• If there are two things you want to do in life and one of them is acting...do the other.
• People assume that I'm wiser than I am because I'm somewhat successful. Age does not bring you wisdom, age brings you wrinkles. If you're dumb when you're young, you're going to be dumb when you're old.
• Being tiny has been difficult for me in a business that regarded physicality as the most important part of your life. And I always had to fight against the fact that I could do things even though I was small. And eventually I proved to them I could play mother to six footers".

Interesting Facts about Estelle Getty

1. Getty played mother to Bea Arthur on The Golden Girls (1985), however, Bea is actually 15½ months older than Estelle.
2. Getty's career actually began when she was much younger on the Borscht Belt circuit and Yiddish stage, but she gave it up to raise a family. She returned to acting much later and became a success on Broadway as Harvey Fierstein's meddling mom in "Torch Song Trilogy". It was the L.A. tour of this show that led to her being cast in The Golden Girls (1985), and at age 62, she became an "overnight" television star.
3. Retired in 2000 after revealing she had health issues. In the mid 1990s, she was misdiagnosed with Parkinson's disease. By the end of the 1990s, she was misdiagnosed again, this time with Alzheimer's disease. Later, she was correctly diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, which has similar symptoms to both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
4. She played the same character (Sophia Spirelli Petrillo-Weinstock) on five different television series: The Golden Palace (1992), The Golden Girls (1985), Nurses (1991), Empty Nest (1988), and Blossom (1990).
5. During a brief reunion in November 2004 with The Golden Girls (1985) co-stars Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Bea Arthur, it was reported on television by the ladies that Estelle was suffering from severe dementia.
6. She had two sons with her husband, Arthur: Carl Gettleman and Barry Gettleman.
7. Her parents, Sarah (Lacher) and Charles Scher, were Polish Jewish immigrants. She had two siblings, a brother, David, and a sister, Rosilyn.
8. She was nicknamed "Slats" by her The Golden Girls (1985) co-stars because of her short height and light weight.
9. In 1991, as later reported in Star magazine, Getty helped her 29-year-old nephew Steven Scher, who was suffering from the final stages of AIDS and near death. Because his parents lived in England and his friends were no longer able to care for him in Greensboro, North Carolina, Getty took it upon herself to have him flown to California and admitted to hospice care. He died in January 1992.
10. She died from Lewy body dementia at her home in Hollywood, only three days before her 85th birthday. She was survived by her two sons and two grandchildren.
11. Following her death, she was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
12. Attended and graduated from Seward Park High School in New York City.
13. Is the only one of the four 'Golden Girls', who appeared in a film nominated for Best Picture Oscar, she appeared in Tootsie (1982).