Howdy! My Name is Blanche (Remembering Rue McClanahan)

I first remember encountering Rue McClanahan as Aunt Fran on Mama's Family in the early eighties.   I was addicted to Carol Burnett re-runs and thus became obsessed with Mama's Family when it spun off into its own prime time sit com series.   Not long after Rue's character, Aunt Fran died from choking to death on a chicken bone if I remember correctly, Rue McClanahan showed up on a new risky sit com The Golden Girls.   It was risky because the prime time market in television at this time was flooded with youth obsessed shows and yuppie infused thirty somethings. So, who would want to watch four women of a "certain age," talking about the "change," and dating, and gasp, gasp, horror, horror, their sex lives?   Further more would it be FUNNY!   Hell Yes it would prove to not only be funny but be, well......Golden.   For seven seasons we embraced these funny ladies and thanks to Lifetime, WE, Oxygen, and countless other cable networks, it seems The Golden Girls could also be called The Immortal Girls.    To further illustrate their popularity across all age demographics, it seems that The Golden Girls are quickly catching up to I Love Lucy in terms of how many times it has be re-ran in syndication.   Quite an amazing feat considering I Love Lucy had a thirty year head start.

Beneath all the popularity, awards, and golden reputation this show has it was always the characters that kept me a loyal fan and still has me coming back for more.   I own all the seasons on DVD and yet when I'm flipping the channels, I more often than not get hung up on an episode of The Golden Girls and find it hard to turn the channel no matter how many times I've seen that particular episode.  

Given my love of The Golden Girls it would be hard to say which character I loved more.   The past few years we have lost all but one of those funny ladies.   Estelle Getty (Sophia) was the first to go, then last year Bea Arthur (Dorothy) left us and just recently Rue made her final bow and exit as well.   So as much as a grieve for my girls that have gone on, they live on, thank God on some TV channel somewhere in the world daily; but also the beloved Betty White has, at the age of 88, hit her stride it seems, beyond enjoying a renaissance of sorts in her career she has become hip and known to a whole new generation which has reportedly given an astronomical jump in the number of cable stations buying up rights to the syndicated episodes of The Golden Girls!

Yet, one Golden Girl hit a home run in my heart from the very first episode and that was Blanche, so brilliantly played by Rue McClanahan.   Rue herself had remained busy after the series ended doing theater and TV movies and various guest spots on popular shows.   Rue had also begin to hit a comeback in the last two years as well.   Her memoir, My First Five Husbands, became a best seller, she received kudos and critical praise when she joined the Broadway cast of Wicked, and finally she re-entered the world of TV sit coms when she accepted the role of Peggy Ingraham in Del Shores' Logo Channel cult hit, Sordid Lives.   Playing along side Caroline Rhea, Ann Walker, Bonnie Bedilia, Beth Grant, Leslie Jordan, & Olivia Newton John Rue once again turned up the heat on how society might expect a seventy something year old grandma character to behave.   The series has been on hiatus awaiting some legal issues to be resolved; but Rue made an indelible and hilarious mark with her talent and comic timing in the first season.  

But getting back to Blanche, I feel like I have to sort of come clean and do a sort of "AA minute," here:  HI, my name is Kitty and I am Blanche.   My drag personae Kitty Davis was heavily influenced by Rue's Golden Girls' character Blanche Devereaux.   In fact before I finally became Kitty Davis, I was Blanche Davis and then Kitty Devereaux.   I saw Kitty as a culmination of many strong female heroines and characters but felt like Kitty was best summed up as a hybrid of Blanche Devereaux (Rue from Golden Girls) and Suzanne Sugarbakker (Delta Burke of Designing Women).   Blanche continued to follow my private life for all of my twenties and most of my thirties as many friends openly nicknamed me as Blanche given, (allegedly), my sexual adventures, again.........allegedly (wink wink)!

So I will always remember Rue's pitch perfect Southern drawl, sizzling saunter, and smoldering swagger.   Though I never met her I always felt close to her, lucky for us Blanche will live on thanks to cable and seven seasons of comic treasures and Rue, what else to say.......but thanks for being a friend.