For background sound I'm playing Television Archive interviews. It's nice to be transported down memory lane but often wrenching as well.

Beatrice Arthur -- "Maude" -- claims not to have had anything in common with her character's rampant feminism, but goes on to spend an hour or more lauding that series and Golden Girls for having dared to "explore social issues," ad inf. -- not least the episode in which Maude got an abortion.

In minute 9 here, she expresses nostalgia for the more "innocent,"</span> "lovely," "sweet little" shows of the 1950s-60s, but then catches herself and -- with notable less joy in her tone -- asserts that today's rotten, politicized, pornographic fare has "more merit".

Beatrice Arthur - Archive Interview Part 5 of 5</span>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m-SBr4dTV4&amp;NR=1

Of course, if you're being interviewed for an immortal set of interviews that will probably be studied by doctoral students for the next 300 years, you have to disavow all innocence and give an occasional Nazi salute to PC. Or be considered a frump </span>by cognoscenti down through all eternity. That is, I suspect, the kind of thinking that dominates in the showbiz crowd, at any rate.

Arthur names mostly gewish names relative to her career and looks to me like she'd really rather be talking to a fellow gewess. When the gracious and almost pretty interviewer thanks her at the end, she says "you mean I'm free</span>!?" -- and makes like she's about to sidle away as fast as she can, looking off in the other direction.

Dick Van Dyke in his turn contrasts today, when commercials are never-ending and the end of "Seinfeld" is covered like a polar shift, with the era of the Dick Van Dyke Show when producers produced fare "they believed in" and each series had just one sponsor. He's clearly not happy about the change but too polite to say so outright.... besides, how many more gigs would he get in his reclining years if he did?

That link escapes me, but MS. Arthur's whole 9th minute is jam-packed.

This</span> link is too </span>sleazy and decadent for words.

http://www.observer.com/node/45659
Bea Arthur, the Bawd of Broadway, Talks Dirty Just Between Friends</span></font>

Later.</font> Bea Arthur </span>Hated</span> Golden Girl Betty White!</span> Headline, 1/18/10 National Enquirer "Betty would be in the middle of a scene when Bea would start screaming at her and calling her names, says [costar Rue] McClanahan's ex-lover John Caldwell. "Rue told me she hoped Betty would finally stand up for herself, but instead she would just start crying."</span><br style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">
MY COMMENT: I don't know what Bea was complaining about. Betty was more than happy to play the gew-formulated stock character of dumb, delusional white shikse</span> to to Arthur's "brilliant, wisecracking" gew diva -- just as McClanahan played the gew-formulated stock dumb Southerner. YOU SHOULD SEE the sneering, snarling, picture of Arthur accompanying the article -- captioned "Foul-mouthed Bea Arhur on the set of the hit sitcom</span>"!
Can anybody think of a truer icon of clannish gew conceit than her???? "Whenever Bea was asked why there was never a reunion show, she'd simply reply "because Betty White is a %$#@&amp;.</span>"

Edited by: Nelson3