Bea Arthur Quotations

I'm not playing a role. I'm being myself, whatever the hell that is.

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I believe that you're here on Earth for a short time, and while you're here, you shouldn't forget it.

In sitcoms, the women are so beautiful, understanding and well-bred. They have humor, but sort of display it with a twinkle of the eye and not a guffaw. But there's no juice in that for me.

I'm 5-feet-9, I have a deep voice, and I have a way with a line. What can I do about it? I can't stay home waiting for something different. I think it's a total waste of energy worrying about typecasting.

I've seen so many excellent actors - excellent actors - who, the minute they're told they're in a comedy, turn into God knows what - creatures from another planet! I mean they just... the voice changes, they don't look the same, it's like - it has no similarity to any living human being, do you know what I mean?

I feel I'm an actress who sings a bit.

My dream was to become a very small blonde movie star like Ida Lupino and those other women I saw up there on the screen during the Depression.

I suddenly realized that comedy, for me, was just being honest, and playing it for real. I've seen so many wonderful actors who turn into creatures from another planet when they're told they are supposed to be playing comedy.

I'd never even been to Wrigley Field. I never even enjoyed baseball that much, but I loved being there, the crowd was lovely, and they all sang with me!

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You know, I spend most of my life turning things down. There's a lot of crap out there.

I really cut my teeth on off-off-off Broadway shows.

But that's one of the nice things about doing a stage show, if something doesn't work out, you have the luxury of working on it over time.

I'm very, very involved in charities involving youth.

I... was not too happy to suddenly take on this public role thrust upon me. They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement. And I wasn't at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me.

I really feel all my adult life has been spent in that little black box. If a wonderful part on TV came along I would do it. But I don't want to do a recurring role. It would just be my luck that the thing would be successful. I'm old enough now and also secure enough financially that I really only want to do what I want to do.

Life is filled with a lot of stuff, you know. There is never a dull moment.

Now this goes to the grave with you - I hate cheesecake!

The only one I wanted to do that I didn't was Gypsy, but by the time they got around to asking me, everybody in the world had played it, so I thought now is not the time.

I can't say it's autobiographical, but I do tell a number of anecdotes that I think are amusing.

I did a thing on Malcolm in the Middle which I loved.

For us it was really the same, because we did the show in front of a live audience, it was like being on stage.

But at least I'm not playing other people for a change.

I love cooking, I love reading, I love anything that doesn't take too much exercise!

I watch a lot of news shows and I love Nick at Night, and the Comedy Channel.

I'm here now in Chicago doing my own show, and I think Golden Girls is shown three hours a day here, and everybody loves it.

I think I always sang, I always used to listen to old Bessie Smith records, and Kate Smith. And Billie Holiday. Before television when there was radio.

I think the mother-daughter between Estelle and me was one made in comedy heaven.

Unfortunately opening night in Minneapolis I fell of the stage.

There are moments, I'll be home cooking or something, and it comes to me all at once, and I can't believe it.

All this time I've just wanted to be blonde, beautiful and 5 feet 2 inches tall.

I come from a small town in Maryland. I came to California in 1972 to begin Maude.

I was raised in the theater and, as it turned out, a TV show was like performing a new one-act play. So, it was really no different.

I can't imagine working without and audience.

Many years ago, I was in a Broadway show and I had to wear a fox fur around my shoulders. One day my hand touched one of the fox's legs. It seemed to be in two pieces. Then it dawned on me.... her leg had probally been snapped in two by the steel trap that had caught it.

I wish there was something more that performers could do other than get out there and sing at benefit performances. I wish I felt that if I had an empty room I'd like to bring in someone and make it a hospice, but I'm not Mother Teresa. I can't do that.

Down in Florida it was an older audience, and it was interesting to see how they responded to things compared to other audiences, it's been very interesting.

I've been blessed with both shows, with that and with Maude, working with terrific writers and directors.

When you are working with someone it's like family, you are together every day.

But I've been doing it most of my adult life, and I like the idea of a one woman show, because it's something I can do when I want to, and not to it when I don't want to do it.

So what does it all mean? You become a popular TV personality. Fifteen million viewers weekly. Top ratings.

I've lost quite a bit of weight since I did Maude, but I don't see myself looking better, I think I look older. Because I am!

And I hate autobiographies, I don't know why.

Some people say I'm only happy when I'm working, or not working, I'm happy whether I'm working or not, my animals, my kids, anything.

Except for one thing, I no longer do benefits for research, I do benefits to make sure the people who are infected are taken care of are treated, and fed and housed, and their lives made a little easier.

Except I really wanted to be a small little blonde musical type in the movies. I wanted to be a starlet.

You see I feel we did the best work we could possibly do, I don't think the writing could be any better, so why go back to it?

In a theater you have that many more seats, so that many more people, and they are feeding you, telling you how far you can go or what you can do.

I guess having two kids who are bright and articulate and have great humor and are decent.

I have two enormous Dobermans, they couldn't possibly fly with me.

Every time you perform you learn a little bit more.

That's another reason that I don't want to do any more series. It really took up more time than I should have allotted to it.

I guess just, I don't know, I didn't know I was that vibrant, I just love being alive, and I love people, and I find something wonderful everyday.

In the show I actually talk a lot about how TV has changed.

If you would have told me ten years ago I'd be doing this and being received like I am now, I'd say you're crazy.

But I did like the fact that we did a lot of good in presenting problems that had not been tackled before on television.

They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement.

An Evening with Bea Arthur and Billy Goldenberg at the Piano.

And of course Mae West when I was very, very young, I thought she was the end.

It's so rewarding when you hear the audience respond.

There was so much more we wanted to cover on the show, but since I couldn't get the network censors to budge, I decided to leave the show.

It's a very small operation, there are five of us traveling, and I like working with different audiences, seeing how different it is from one night to the next.

I don't think there was ever an embarrassment, there was such love going back and forth between the audience and us, that nothing was embarrassing.