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Estelle Getty, who played meddling mother Sophia on "The Golden Girls," died Tuesday morning. She was 84. Getty, who suffered from advanced dementia, died around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica .
Getty won an Emmy Award in 1988 for her portrayal of the feisty octogenarian. For her role as Sophia, Getty also notched a Golden Globe Award in 1986. She also received an American Comedy Award. Getty co-starred on "Golden Girls" from 1985-92 and reprised the tart-tongued Sophia on four other TV series: "The Golden Palace ," "Nurses," "Empty Nest" and "Blossom." Getty was two months younger than Bea Arthur, who played her daughter, but the illusion of her age was maintained through makeup, costume and her deportment.
In similar vein of take-no-prisoners elder, Getty played Sylvester Stallone's domineering mother, Tutti Bomowski, in "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot." Generically, it was a battling-buddy movie whose comic thrust was the diminutive Getty's bossing around her L.A. lawman son. Getty was 47 when she got her first significant role in an off-Broadway musical: She gained immediate prominence when she played in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Torch Song Trilogy," playing Harvey Fierstein's acidic mother.
She played Grandma Estelle Little in "Stuart Little" in 1999, and more recently played Sister Roseanne" in "The Million Dollar Kid." She also appeared on "Hollywood Squares" in 1998.
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