TV URBAN LEGEND: NBC wanted The Golden Girls to be about a group of "older women"...in their 40s.

The origins of The Golden Girls is fascinating (well, I think so, at least). I even did an earlier TV Legends Revealed on the subject, about how the NBC upfronts in May 1984 had a shtick promoting their then-new series, Miami Vice. Selma Diamond from Night Court and Doris Roberts from Remington Steele did a bit about them mishearing the name "Miami Vice" and thinking that the show was called Miami NICE and that it was about a group of older ladies having fun in Miami.

The routine got a big laugh and NBC executive Warren Littlefield found it particularly amusing. Soon after, Paul Junger Witt and his production partner, Tony Thomas, were taking a meeting with NBC to pitch them a new show with another TV writer (who, I don't know) when NBC turned down their pitch but instead told them that they were interested in the Miami Nice idea. The writer that Witt and Thomas came with was not interested.

So Witt went home and asked his wife (and fellow production partner) Susan Harris (a very popular TV writer who had created both Soap and the hit Soap spinoff, Benson) if she could come up with a pitch. Harris recalled to Entertainment Weekly's Kristen Baldwin:

"I remember where the conversation took place — in the bathroom — and he said, “Honey, listen. What about…” I said, “No, Paul! I’m not — don’t do this to me!” He said, “It would be four older women.” Older appealed to me, because old people have stories and young people didn’t. It was always hard for me to write young people, but old people — there’s a richness that’s there. I said, “Old women?” He said, “Yes, old women.” I thought, “Okay, I could do that.”

Easy as pie, right? So that's where we got the Golden Girls. That's how I left it in that earlier TV Legends Revealed that I mentioned.

But not so fast. You see, Harris was soon to discover that what the network meant by "older women" was women in their 40s!

She, of course, was thinking much older. However, her pitch was so good that she and the network "negotiated" and they settled on an approach where they would never actually SAY the ages of the women on the show.

Their cast ended up being two 63 year olds, a 62 year old and a 51 year old, with Betty White (who has outlived the rest of the cast) being the oldest and Rue McClanahan being the youngest. Amusingly, Estelle Getty was a year YOUNGER than her TV daughter, Bea Arthur.

The show was (and still is) a sensation and you have to figure it never would have been nearly as successful had it been about a group of 40 year olds.

The legend is...

STATUS: True

Thanks to Susan Harris and Kristen Baldwin for the information!

Be sure to check out my archive of TV Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of TV.

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com.