‘Golden Girls’ Crew Broke Up Bea Arthur/Betty White Fight With Raunchy Photos

Most Golden Girls fans know that the show’s biggest stars, Bea Arthur and Betty White, had serious beef. Arthur thought White’s “aren’t I sweet?” persona was phony. Arthur often referred to White as the c-slur, annoyed by her habit of talking to the audience out of character. When one of the Girls forgot dialogue, for example, “Betty would go to the audience and say, ‘We're just a bunch of old sluts that can't remember our lines,’ and get a big laugh, and Bea would be like, ‘Come on, stop doing that,’” remembers writer-producer Mitch Hurwitz. “It's totally understandable, you know. She's trying to focus, and here Betty is, being beloved.”

The two actors were pros and didn’t let their personal beef spill onto the Golden Girls set. But Arthur, in particular, often threatened to turn the beef into an all-out brawl, according to The Golden Girls: 40 Years of Laughter and Friendship, as reported by PEOPLE.  

Producer Marsha Posner Williams recalled Arthur calling her at home to complain about White. “I got a call from Bea one day, and she said, ‘I just ran into that woman at the supermarket. I'm going to write her a letter.’ I said, ‘Bea, do yourself a favor. Please write her a letter, read it out loud, and then throw it away, because you would serve no purpose.’”

Arthur may have taken that particular piece of advice, but the feud was still simmering. It reached a full boil during filming of a Season 3 Christmas episode, which found neither actress in the holiday spirit. 

“We heard yelling backstage,” says original Golden Girls writer Barry Fanaro. “And we all sort of crept out. They were having a fight. It was the only time ever.” It didn’t get any better the next day, when the palpable tension lingered in the air. 

Who solved the problem? Not Rue McClanahan or Estelle Getty. Instead, it was the show’s stagehands who decided they needed to bring some peace back to the set. Their plan to broker a treaty, however, was naughtier than nice. 

The plot of the episode, “Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas,” involved Blanche gifting a beefcake ‘Men of Blanche's Boudoir’ calendar to her roommates to spice up their holidays. The crew got hold of the prop and gave it a personal touch. 

“They had taken naked pictures of themselves, riding horses, in saddles, as firemen,” Fanaro remembered. “So they had planted them in the calendar, and that immediately broke any tension. It was all over. They were hugging each other.”

Arthur wasn’t mad anymore? “Bea laughed so loud,” recalled executive producer Tony Thomas.

It’s a good reminder to everyone as the holidays approach. There’s no better way to say, “Thank you for being a friend” than taking a naked selfie on a horse.