Episode 1: Who Actually Created The Golden Girls? The Executives and Producers S [6:28-11:29]

The son of Danny Thomas, legendary actor, TV host and founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tony Thomas made his mark not in front of the camera like his father, but behind it as a prolific producer known for pairing smart scripts with heart. He co-founded Whit Thomas Harris Productions with Paul Younger Whit and Susan Harris. A creative trio whose fingerprints are all over some of Hollywood's favorite sitcoms like soap, Benson and Empty Nest. This interview was conducted by former interview's director Karen Herman in 2006. I've been very fortunate to have the right network executives at the right place at the right time. May everybody knows the story. That NBC was presenting their season. They had two ladies who were in other shows of theirs. One was a night court, one was in another show, put older ladies and they came out presenting Miami nice and they did this stick this run about. No, it's not in that's Miami nice. It's about anyway, from that moment, Brandon Tartikov looked at Warren Littlefield and said, there's a series in women like this. Paul and I been working with another writer on another idea about two sisters and we went into Pitchett and they were not crazy about the notion and they said in the room, how do you feel about writing about older women? We want to do something about a couple of older women living together and the writer said, I don't do older. I mean, I don't know what that would do is fair. We stuck around afterwards and said, we do and we know just the writer's season. It's just clear that older people have more interesting stories. They live longer and so we said, we'll do it. We know Susan would love to do it. And so Paul Susan and I sat down and it became three people. Three people living together, not two because you wanted the diversity of different characters. And then we, of course, you know, they always said, let's now let's go really all then give them a mother, give one of the mother and theoretically had it stroked a couple of times in her life. So the censors was not always working so she could say anything she wanted, which is how we played a style. In the beginning and later, there was no stroke issue but that was kind of what we had said so that she could just be a loose cannon. The ability of three women not to have life be over at their age, that was the core of the story. And then you can recreate another family and do something else and still have friends and support. Of course, they behave like teenagers and spoke like teenagers at the time. But I think it was a good point of view for America to understand that you know, you get a certain age and you still have feelings and thoughts that are very much like an 18 year old and the life to the fullest is a wonderful notion to think that if I get in that situation, which my love, my spouse has gone, that I could find some people like that and be together and roommates and share their lives and make it support me. I think that was the strength of the show and then it was just kickass funny. Casting process was at first Brandon and Warren had said that they wanted to try to cast it. It faces that America was not familiar, which is a tough word at that age. I mean, the script said, be Arthur type. And so we went to New York and Chicago and elsewhere in Canada and looked around and a lot of Broadway people and theater people. The real horses won out. I mean, the people that can really deliver. Not that there weren't some great Broadway actresses that we read, but ladies know what they were doing. Be Arthur could get you a laugh just by looking just by just by a take just by pausing before the line and the middle of the line after the line. Impeccable timing, impeccable looks in fine actress, potentially the funniest woman besides Lucy ever to be on television. I mean, just big-time funny, complete delight, but just killer perfect, perfect. You know, Betty, the trooper who knew comedic timing from her birth, I bet. And Rue just embraced that character so wonderfully and just understood how to play it and where the vulnerabilities were and where the outrageousness was of it. The casting of a stale, it still came into my office with Judith Wiener and was, it was this woman who blew it up. There was, we have callback sessions. It's either to read in front of the same people again and make sure you're happy enough with them that it wasn't an accident and then you bring them to the networks. The callback session, I couldn't be at and Susan and Paul and Jake were there and I was editing so I said to them, I still get it, it's going to come in here and read for you. If she doesn't do it right, make sure she does it again. Do not let her leave this room until you're happy because I'm telling you, there's nobody else. And I go running downstairs and I come back later to Paul, like I said, I don't know what you saw in a stale getting. I said, you are kidding me. I will kill you. You let this woman out of the room. They all say, kidding me. She was great from the moment she walked on the