Estelle Getty

In 2002, it was revealed to the media that she is also suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In 1956 she again starred with March in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. In 2000, she stopped making public appearances after she revealed that she has Parkinson's disease. Harding became stereotyped as the innocent young woman willing to sacrifice herself for others, and she eventually quit making movies when she married in 1937, although she was lured back in 1942 to make Eyes in the Night. One of the most ironic things about casting Getty in this role was that she is actually two months younger than Bea Arthur: on Golden Girls, Getty was heavily made-up to seem significantly older. In 1931 she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Holiday. In it, she played the wise-cracking old Italian mother of Dorothy, who was the show's main protagonist, played by Bea Arthur. In 1929 she made her film debut in Paris Bound, opposite Fredric March.

Estelle Getty (born Estelle Scher on July 25, 1923) is an American actress best known for her role as Sophia Petrillo on the popular 1980s sitcom, The Golden Girls. Following school, she got a job as a script reader, and began acting on Broadway. The family finally settled in New York, and young Dorothy attended Bryn Mawr College. Born Dorothy Walton Gatley in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, the daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life. Ann Harding (August 7, 1901 - September 1, 1981) was an American actress.