Today was the birthday of two-time Emmy Award-winning and Tony Award-winning American comedian, actress and singer BEA ARTHUR. During a career spanning six decades, Arthur was perhaps best remembered for her trademark role as the title character, “Maude Findlay,” on the 1970s sitcom Maude, and for playing “Dorothy Zbornak,” the divorced substitute teacher on The Golden Girls.

She managed to become a Gay icon for many men who grew up in the 1970s and 80s. On stage, her roles included “Lucy Brown” in the 1954 Off-Broadway premiere of Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera, and “Yente the Matchmaker” in the 1964 premiere of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, and a 1966 Tony Award-winning portrayal of “Vera Charles” to Angela Lansbury’s Mame (she recreated the role in the ill-advised and unsuccessful film version opposite Lucille Ball in 1974).

Bea Arthur passed away April 25th 2013. Over the years I’ve heard rumors that she was a Lesbian, and it isn’t hard to believe. But I don’t know it for a fact. It would fit, though, with my remembrance of this strong, smart, brave woman. This writer had personal history with her.

I moved to Los Angeles (as crew with A Chorus Line, another story), and, as is my wont, got involved with SAG union activities. I was serving on the SAG Morals & Ethics Committee in 1977 when Anita Bryant announced that she was bringing her pitiful, small-minded ignorance, intolerance and fear to California in the form of support for State Senator John Briggs’ Proposition 6, the Prop 8 of the day, that would have forbid Gay people…or any of their supporters…from holding teaching jobs in California. Nice, huh?

I thought the Screen Actors Guild needed to be the first industry union to come out against Prop 6, and that the only way to accomplish that was to get some big star power to appear before the Morals & Ethics Committee and demand it. Enter Bea Arthur. Ms. Arthur had just made her splash in Norman Lear’s Maude, and would receive the first of two career Emmy’s (the other for Golden Girls) that year for it. On television, there just wasn’t a bigger star.

It was just about this time of the year that I sat down and wrote a letter to Ms. Arthur, outlining my idea. I mailed the letter and didn’t think anything more about it. It was a shot in the dark. Weeks later, May 16th was my birthday, and I was getting ready to go out on the town with friends. Literally, just as we were heading out the front door, the phone rang (cell phones were still a Dick Tracy fantasy…I could still decide whether or not I was going to stop and answer). I picked up, said hello, and heard the unmistakable, gravelly contralto of Bea Arthur,

“Is Bo Young there?”

“Speaking,” I said. I immediately recognized her unmistakable voice, my heart pounded out of my chest, my eyes popping out of their sockets as I pantomimed to my friends at the door, who were wondering what was going on.

“Well hello,” she growled on, “I just wanted to let you know that I received your letter and I wanted you to know I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

To which I responded, with breathless gratitude, “Oh god bless you Ms. Arthur!”

To which she responded, “What’s this ‘god bless you’ shit?…I didn’t sneeze.”

The surprise was finding out, later, just how shy a woman this powerhouse actor was. When I met with her she insisted that I write something for her to say when she came before the committee because she was sure she would become tongue-tied and not be effective. Maude. Not effective. Right. She did everything I asked, just as promised, to perfection. Reading my lines to the committee, which immediately came through with the required vote, which then went on to the larger Steering Committee of the Screen Actors Guild, which was the first industry union to oppose the Briggs Initiative. As a result I was brought into the campaign as “assistant state press secretary” to Sally Fisk.

Later, I had cause to call Ms. Arthur again, to see if she would appear at a fundraiser we were holding in connection with the 1978 Briggs Initiative in support of No On Six. Unbeknownst to me, she had undergone a face lift just weeks before, and as a result her face was still puffy and black and blue. She still had bandages on her face, albeit small ones…and she appeared at our fundraiser. She said it was more important than what she looked like.

In November of 2005, Bea flew to New York City from her home in Los Angeles to give a special benefit performance of her one-woman show. The performance raised over $40,000 for the Ali Forney Center. In an interview for Next Magazine Bea explained her decision to offer her support “I’m very, very involved in charities involving youth and the plight of foster children. But these kids at the Ali Forney Center are literally dumped by their families because of the fact that they are Lesbian, Gay, or transgender – this organization really is saving lives.” Bea continued to offer her support, both as a donor and as an advocate. In one of her very last interviews, published in the New York Blade in May 2008, Bea spoke with pride of having done the benefit for AFC, and indicated that she would do anything to help Gay kids disowned by their parents.

Her estate left $300,000 to the Ali Forney LGBT Shelter. As a result, in December of 2017, Ali Forney opened its doors to its facility for homeless LGBT youth, the Bea Arthur Residence..

That’s the kind of person Bea Arthur was.