Blanche Devereaux
Encyclopedia
Blanche Elizabeth Devereaux (née Hollingsworth) is one of the four main fictional character
s on the 1985-1992 NBC
sitcom The Golden Girls
, and its CBS
spin-off The Golden Palace
. In the pilot episode her last name was given as Hollingsworth, but this was somewhat "corrected" in later episodes by making this her maiden name. Blanche was portrayed by Rue McClanahan
for 8 years and 206 episodes.
, at her family's mansion, Twin Oaks. Her parents were the late Elizabeth-Ann Margaret Bennett (Helen Kleeb
) (later seasons named her mother as "Samantha Roquet") and Curtis "Big Daddy" Hollingsworth (first Murray Hamilton
, and after Hamilton died, David Wayne
), the latter a revered man in his neck of the woods. Much to Blanche's dismay, he married a young widow named Margaret Spencer (Sondra Currie
) years after Blanche's mother, Elizabeth, died, but she grudgingly accepted the marriage. Blanche was not at Big Daddy's side when he died because she was supposed to attend a ball in Miami, in which she was the host (she admitted that in order to get the part she had to sleep with a committee member twice) but refused to go to his funeral because of an argument with her sister Virginia; Blanche regretted this afterward and resolved to try to rethink her priorities in life. After Big Daddy died, it was revealed that he and Blanche's long-lost African-American nanny Viola Watkins (Ruby Dee
) had an affair that lasted for fifty years. She attended the fictional Miss McIver's Finishing School. Blanche is a member of "the Alpha Gams" (Alpha Gamma Delta
) but it is not known which university she attended. The most likely schools are Brenau University
or the University of Georgia
which both have Alpha Gam Chapters dating back to the time when Blanche was college-aged. Both schools are also located within a short driving distance of Blanche's home in Atlanta. On occasions, Blanche states that she was Baptist
. Blanche also had a nanny, who called her by another middle name, Marie. She called out this name on the episode where she had returned to Miami to claim a music box she had given Blanche's father, Big Daddy, when the two of them had an affair while he was married to Blanche's mother.
Blanche has four siblings: Charmaine (Barbara Babcock
), the eldest sister, who infuriated Blanche when she wrote a sordid novel that Blanche thought was about her, but when it was revealed that the book was about Charmaine and not Blanche, they made up and apologized to each other. Virginia (Sheree North
) is the spoiled youngest sister, with whom Blanche shares a mutual loathing. They buried the hatchet when Virginia went into renal failure and Blanche offered her kidney to her sister, but their relationship became strained once more after their argument after Big Daddy's death in which Virginia accused Blanche of being too selfish and self-centered to say goodbye to her own father. There is also Clayton (Monte Markham
), a younger brother whose subsequent revelation as being gay troubled Blanche to some extent; Blanche's reluctance to accept Clayton's sexual orientation nearly cost her relationship with him. During The Golden Palace, it was revealed that Blanche has a mentally challenged brother, Tad (Ned Beatty
), who has spent most of his life in a Chattanooga institution. It was once revealed, when she was attempting to gain entry to the Daughters of the South, that she is 1/8 Jewish, her great-grandmother having been a Jewish woman named Rosalind Feldman from Buffalo, New York
. Blanche also had a visit from her promiscuous niece, Lucy (played by Hallie Todd
, later of Lizzie McGuire
fame).
). George died a few years before the start of the series in 1985, and at some point earlier, they had moved from Atlanta to Miami.
In a 1990 episode, Blanche had a dream that George came back from the dead nine years later (he said that he faked his death to escape criminal prosecution for fraud
). Rue McClanahan has said that George was the love of Blanche's life, and that her promiscuity
was in fact a desperate search for the next love of her life. The cause of George's death is never definitively established in the series: he either died immediately during a car accident when Blanche was at home, or after being in a coma when Blanche was getting a pedicure.
During her junior year in high school, in spring 1949, when she was 17, she almost eloped with Deck Boughvenlough, the father of her rival at cheerleading with the sole purpose of having her taken off the squad. From this story, we learn that Blanche was born in 1932. This made her 53 when the first season begins and 61 when The Golden Palace went off the air in 1993.
On the show, Blanche is shown to have dated various men, some of them unsavory. She almost married a bigamist in the pilot episode before he got caught by the police. Another man stole her necklace at her full moon-leap year's party, and he too was caught by the police. One boyfriend named Rex was emotionally and verbally abusive, until her roommate Dorothy helped her see his true colors. Another boyfriend Gary (Jerry Hardin
) cheated on her under her very roof by sleeping with Rose's sister Holly (Inga Swenson
) who was visiting. Blanche overcame her apprehension of dating Ted, who was in a wheelchair, only to find out he was married, so she terminated the relationship based on the fact that she has never been the "other woman" in extramarital affairs and never wanted to be. The only other time that occurred was when, through a bizarre turn-of-events, her beau's wife was revived by paramedics after she was declared dead. But Blanche has also ruined good relationships with worthy men: Jake (Donnelly Rhodes
) was perfect and wanted to marry her, he was charming, romantic, but not good enough for Blanche and she turned him down, to the disgust of her roommates, and regretted it later, and when Steven (Robert Mandan
) was hospitalized, she refused to visit him until much later, by which time he reconciled with his ex-girlfriend, Karen. Unlike Blanche, who feared commitment and having another man die on her, when Karyn heard of Steven's illness, she went right to his side when he needed someone. She also dated John Quin (Edward Winter) and considered breaking up with him because he was blind and she felt self-conscious because she knew he wasn't attracted to her physical beauty. She later apologized to him and made plans to go out with him again, but the relationship apparently ended, as he is never mentioned on the series again. Blanche's most frequent (but only seen once in Season 6) date was Mel Bushman (Alan King), who was always available whenever she lacked male companionship. The one time he wasn't, Blanche assumed he was dead and promptly fell in temporary love with him when she realized he was alive. Because of his zipper manufacturing business, Mel was known as "The Zipper King". When Blanche's death is reported mistakenly in the paper, Mel Bushman sends flowers and a note, saying he's gone back to his ex-wife.
On the show, Blanche is portrayed as a promiscuous woman, with her initials spelling out the word "BED." However, Viola Watkins calls her "Blanche Marie." She spends a great deal of her time with members of the opposite sex, and this is a source of both condemnation from and amusement to her roommates. Blanche's seemingly liberated human sexual behavior is a contrast to the sexual climate of the 1980s, when AIDS was beginning to seep into a nation's consciousness. However, in the episode "72 Hours," it is mentioned that Blanche was cognizant of the dangers of HIV and STDs; she always used protection and knows every lover's full sexual history. It is also implied in one episode that she has had numerous interracial sexual liaisons with African-American men, though no such relations were ever depicted on camera.
, played by southern comic Bill Engvall
). During the series, Blanche learns that George also had a son named David (Mark Moses
), as the result of an affair. In the third season episode "Bringing Up Baby", when Dorothy questions an impulsive car purchase, Blanche says to her: "I have had four children, I have never had a Mercedes". This makes it possible that "Biff" or "Skippy" were nicknames for two of Blanche's sons.
During the course of the show, Blanche is revealed not to have been very 'hands-on' as a mother, as she frequently left her children to nannies and housekeepers. She had a strained relationship with both of her daughters, especially Janet, something that led to some of the most dramatic storylines as she expressed regrets that she wasn't there for her children more (the relationship between her four sons is never mentioned). However, Blanche slowly rebuilt her relationships with Janet and Rebecca throughout the series. By the time the series ended, both Rebecca and Janet had healed their relationships with their mother.
Blanche's daughter Rebecca was seen most often on the show, although she and Blanche had frequent falling outs and bitter fights. Prior to the show's start, they had had a falling over Rebecca's decision to drop out of school and take up modelling; then, they fought over Rebecca's verbally abusive boyfriend; later, they fought over Rebecca's decision to be artificially inseminated. They then feuded over Rebecca's choice of a "birthing center" instead of a hospital, and finally feuded again when Rebecca's believed Blanche was using her baby to "get men". In each case, they eventually made up again (something Blanche seems not to have ever done with Janet).
Blanche also has at least four grandchildren, David, Melissa, and Sarah (all born to Janet, who married a "Yankee" named Michael), as well as Rebecca's child, Aurora.
Blanche's grandson David visited the girls, but was unhappy and rebellious, due to problems in his home life (his parents fought and ignored him). After David confided in Blanche, she told Janet that she wanted David to live with her, leading to a bitter falling out between mother and daughter. David was depicted as being 14 at the time, which would have made him born in 1971. This would have made Blanche a grandmother at 39 or 40 years old, which means that Janet likely was a teenage mother (or is the result of a continuity error).
, Dorothy Zbornak
, and Sophia Petrillo
. Throughout the series, she and Rose are often involved in the same activities, be it auditioning for a play or doing community service projects. Though she, like Dorothy and Sophia, is annoyed at times by Rose's constant storytelling, she saw her as both her best friend and a surrogate sister. To be sure, Blanche had her own collection of strange stories which she also shared from time to time, often tales of her rivalry with sisters Virginia and Charmaine or of the promiscuous stunts she pulled as a teenager.
Her relationship with Dorothy is mixed with envy and condemnation and sisterhood on both parts: Dorothy envies and condemns Blanche's sexual comfortability, while Blanche envies Dorothy's intelligence and condemns her fashion sense, among other things. And yet, both she and Dorothy at times isolate themselves from Rose, ganging up on her when the latter said anything particularly foolish, and taking turns hitting her on the head with a newspaper or magazine. Their relationship is also symbiotic: in one of the last episodes in the series, Dorothy admitted that Blanche has helped her be comfortable with her own sexuality, while Dorothy herself has always served as Blanche's other voice of reason. Although Blanche is only three years younger than Dorothy (born 1929) and one or two years younger than Rose (born 1930 or 1931), she frequently rubs in the fact that she is the youngest roommate in the house.
Blanche's relationship with Sophia is also interesting: Blanche sees her both as a mother figure and as a mean old lady, and Sophia sees her as one of her daughters and, very vocally, a streetwalker. (In the very first episode of the series, Sophia bluntly tells Blanche, "You look like a prostitute.")
In the Season Four episode "Yes, We Have no Havanas", Sophia and Blanche became rivals for the affections of an elderly Cuban gentleman named Fidel Santiago (Henry Darrow
), and the two women traded particularly nasty insults with each other: Sophia called Blanche a "50-year-old mattress," and Blanche referred to Sophia as a "raisin in sneakers" and a "wrinkled old crow". The rivalry came to an abrupt end when Fidel died suddenly. As it turned out, Fidel was even more promiscuous than Blanche - the congregation at his funeral consisted entirely of women he had been romancing (except for Dorothy and Rose), causing Blanche to say "He had his burro hitched to every bed post in town!"
It was revealed in the episode "Love Under the Big Top" that Blanche didn't like tuna fish which was inconsistent with at least two other instances in the series. In the episode "Dorothy's Prized Pupil", Rose became her "wiedenfrugen" (personal assistant) to make up for losing Blanche's earrings (which Blanche actually lost herself while on a romantic date), and she stated that she hated making Blanche's "stinking tuna fish sandwiches" as a part of her daily task. Later, in the episode "What a Difference a Day Makes", Blanche decided to go on a diet and became agitated when Rose ate her "sensible meal," a tuna quiche.
Blanche and the other three women were hailed as breakthrough television role models for older women, being attractive, stylishly dressed, and romantically active.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
s on the 1985-1992 NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
sitcom The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls
The Golden Girls is an American sitcom created by Susan Harris, which originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992. Starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show centers on four older women sharing a home in Miami, Florida...
, and its CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
spin-off The Golden Palace
The Golden Palace
The Golden Palace is an American sitcom that originally aired on CBS from September 18, 1992, to May 14, 1993. The show was a spin-off and continuation of the sitcom The Golden Girls....
. In the pilot episode her last name was given as Hollingsworth, but this was somewhat "corrected" in later episodes by making this her maiden name. Blanche was portrayed by Rue McClanahan
Rue McClanahan
Rue McClanahan was an American actress, best known for her roles on television as Vivian Harmon on Maude, Fran Crowley on Mama's Family, and Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1987.-Early life:McClanahan was born Eddie Rue...
for 8 years and 206 episodes.
Family
Blanche Elizabeth Marie Hollingsworth Devereaux born in 1932 (as revealed by her mother in the season 3 episode "Mother's Day", Blanche was 17 in 1949, so, logically, she was born in 1932), grew up in Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
, at her family's mansion, Twin Oaks. Her parents were the late Elizabeth-Ann Margaret Bennett (Helen Kleeb
Helen Kleeb
Helen Kleeb was an American film and television actress. In a career covering nearly fifty years, she may be best-known for her role as "Miss Mamie Baldwin" on CBS's The Waltons .In 1956-57, she guest-starred on CBS's Hey, Jeannie!, starring Jeannie Carson...
) (later seasons named her mother as "Samantha Roquet") and Curtis "Big Daddy" Hollingsworth (first Murray Hamilton
Murray Hamilton
Murray Hamilton was an American stage, screen, and television actor who appeared in such memorable films as The Hustler, The Graduate and Jaws.-Early life:...
, and after Hamilton died, David Wayne
David Wayne
David Wayne was an American actor with a career spanning nearly 50 years.-Early life and career:...
), the latter a revered man in his neck of the woods. Much to Blanche's dismay, he married a young widow named Margaret Spencer (Sondra Currie
Sondra Currie
Sondra Marie Currie is an American actress.Sondra Currie was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actress Marie Harmon, who made several movies in the 1940s. She is the sister of the twin singers Cherie Currie and Marie Currie. She began her acting career in several B movies...
) years after Blanche's mother, Elizabeth, died, but she grudgingly accepted the marriage. Blanche was not at Big Daddy's side when he died because she was supposed to attend a ball in Miami, in which she was the host (she admitted that in order to get the part she had to sleep with a committee member twice) but refused to go to his funeral because of an argument with her sister Virginia; Blanche regretted this afterward and resolved to try to rethink her priorities in life. After Big Daddy died, it was revealed that he and Blanche's long-lost African-American nanny Viola Watkins (Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee is an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and activist, perhaps best known for co-starring in the film A Raisin in the Sun and the film American Gangster for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Early years:Dee was born Ruby...
) had an affair that lasted for fifty years. She attended the fictional Miss McIver's Finishing School. Blanche is a member of "the Alpha Gams" (Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Gamma Delta is an international women's fraternity, who are mainly sluts, founded in 1904 at Syracuse University. The Fraternity promotes academic excellence, philanthropic giving, ongoing leadership and personal development, and a spirit of loving sisterhood. Also known as "Alpha Gam" and...
) but it is not known which university she attended. The most likely schools are Brenau University
Brenau University
Brenau University is a private university in Gainesville, Georgia, USA, that was founded in 1878 as Georgia Baptist Female Seminary, though it has never been affiliated with the Baptist Church. The total enrollment of Brenau University tops 2,500 students in its four schools...
or the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
which both have Alpha Gam Chapters dating back to the time when Blanche was college-aged. Both schools are also located within a short driving distance of Blanche's home in Atlanta. On occasions, Blanche states that she was Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
. Blanche also had a nanny, who called her by another middle name, Marie. She called out this name on the episode where she had returned to Miami to claim a music box she had given Blanche's father, Big Daddy, when the two of them had an affair while he was married to Blanche's mother.
Blanche has four siblings: Charmaine (Barbara Babcock
Barbara Babcock
Barbara Babcock is an American character actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Grace Gardner on Hill Street Blues for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress—Drama Series in 1981 and her role as Dorothy Jennings on Dr...
), the eldest sister, who infuriated Blanche when she wrote a sordid novel that Blanche thought was about her, but when it was revealed that the book was about Charmaine and not Blanche, they made up and apologized to each other. Virginia (Sheree North
Sheree North
Sheree North was an American actress, singer, and dancer. She was known for being 20th Century Fox's answer to Marilyn Monroe from 1954 to 1956...
) is the spoiled youngest sister, with whom Blanche shares a mutual loathing. They buried the hatchet when Virginia went into renal failure and Blanche offered her kidney to her sister, but their relationship became strained once more after their argument after Big Daddy's death in which Virginia accused Blanche of being too selfish and self-centered to say goodbye to her own father. There is also Clayton (Monte Markham
Monte Markham
Monte Markham is an American actor. During his career, Markham has appeared in film, in television, and on Broadway.Markham was born in Manatee County, Florida, the son of Millie Content and Jesse Edward Markham, Sr., who was a merchant.Of his television roles, Markham is perhaps most famous for...
), a younger brother whose subsequent revelation as being gay troubled Blanche to some extent; Blanche's reluctance to accept Clayton's sexual orientation nearly cost her relationship with him. During The Golden Palace, it was revealed that Blanche has a mentally challenged brother, Tad (Ned Beatty
Ned Beatty
Ned Thomas Beatty is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and a Golden Globe Award; won a Drama Desk Award....
), who has spent most of his life in a Chattanooga institution. It was once revealed, when she was attempting to gain entry to the Daughters of the South, that she is 1/8 Jewish, her great-grandmother having been a Jewish woman named Rosalind Feldman from Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
. Blanche also had a visit from her promiscuous niece, Lucy (played by Hallie Todd
Hallie Todd
Hallie Todd is an American actress, producer and writer, known for her roles as Penny Waters on Brothers and as Jo McGuire on Lizzie Mcguire.-Personal life:...
, later of Lizzie McGuire
Lizzie McGuire
Lizzie McGuire is an American teen sitcom which premiered on the Disney Channel on January 12, 2001 and ended February 14, 2004. A total of 65 episodes were produced and aired. Its target demographic was preteens and adolescents...
fame).
Love life
Although notoriously man-hungry, Blanche was faithfully married for decades to her high school sweetheart George Devereaux (George GrizzardGeorge Grizzard
George Cooper Grizzard, Jr. was an American actor of film and stage. He appeared in more than 40 films, dozens of television programs and a number of Broadway plays.-Life and career:...
). George died a few years before the start of the series in 1985, and at some point earlier, they had moved from Atlanta to Miami.
In a 1990 episode, Blanche had a dream that George came back from the dead nine years later (he said that he faked his death to escape criminal prosecution for fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
). Rue McClanahan has said that George was the love of Blanche's life, and that her promiscuity
Promiscuity
In humans, promiscuity refers to less discriminating casual sex with many sexual partners. The term carries a moral or religious judgement and is viewed in the context of the mainstream social ideal for sexual activity to take place within exclusive committed relationships...
was in fact a desperate search for the next love of her life. The cause of George's death is never definitively established in the series: he either died immediately during a car accident when Blanche was at home, or after being in a coma when Blanche was getting a pedicure.
During her junior year in high school, in spring 1949, when she was 17, she almost eloped with Deck Boughvenlough, the father of her rival at cheerleading with the sole purpose of having her taken off the squad. From this story, we learn that Blanche was born in 1932. This made her 53 when the first season begins and 61 when The Golden Palace went off the air in 1993.
- Blanche also appeared in one episode of Empty Nest, entitled Fatal Attraction, and one episode of Nurses, entitled Moon Over Miami.
On the show, Blanche is shown to have dated various men, some of them unsavory. She almost married a bigamist in the pilot episode before he got caught by the police. Another man stole her necklace at her full moon-leap year's party, and he too was caught by the police. One boyfriend named Rex was emotionally and verbally abusive, until her roommate Dorothy helped her see his true colors. Another boyfriend Gary (Jerry Hardin
Jerry Hardin
Jerry Hardin is an American actor who has made many television and film appearances. He played illegitimate heir, Wild Bill Westchester, in the failed 1982 television series Filthy Rich. One of his most recognizable roles was that of the character Deep Throat in the series The X-Files...
) cheated on her under her very roof by sleeping with Rose's sister Holly (Inga Swenson
Inga Swenson
Inga Swenson is an American actress.Inga Swenson was a graduate of Central High School in Omaha, Nebraska, Class of 1950...
) who was visiting. Blanche overcame her apprehension of dating Ted, who was in a wheelchair, only to find out he was married, so she terminated the relationship based on the fact that she has never been the "other woman" in extramarital affairs and never wanted to be. The only other time that occurred was when, through a bizarre turn-of-events, her beau's wife was revived by paramedics after she was declared dead. But Blanche has also ruined good relationships with worthy men: Jake (Donnelly Rhodes
Donnelly Rhodes
Donnelly Rhodes is a Canadian actor. He recently starred as Doctor Cottle on the Sci Fi Channel television program Battlestar Galactica. Before Battlestar Galactica he was probably best known to American audiences as the lovestruck, hapless escaped convict "Dutch Leitner" on the 1970s soap-opera...
) was perfect and wanted to marry her, he was charming, romantic, but not good enough for Blanche and she turned him down, to the disgust of her roommates, and regretted it later, and when Steven (Robert Mandan
Robert Mandan
Robert Mandan is an American actor, most famous for his portrayals of playwright David Allen on the NBC serial From These Roots from 1958–1961, businessman Sam Reynolds on the serial Search for Tomorrow from 1965 to 1970, and his subsequent satire of the genre playing Chester Tate on the sitcom...
) was hospitalized, she refused to visit him until much later, by which time he reconciled with his ex-girlfriend, Karen. Unlike Blanche, who feared commitment and having another man die on her, when Karyn heard of Steven's illness, she went right to his side when he needed someone. She also dated John Quin (Edward Winter) and considered breaking up with him because he was blind and she felt self-conscious because she knew he wasn't attracted to her physical beauty. She later apologized to him and made plans to go out with him again, but the relationship apparently ended, as he is never mentioned on the series again. Blanche's most frequent (but only seen once in Season 6) date was Mel Bushman (Alan King), who was always available whenever she lacked male companionship. The one time he wasn't, Blanche assumed he was dead and promptly fell in temporary love with him when she realized he was alive. Because of his zipper manufacturing business, Mel was known as "The Zipper King". When Blanche's death is reported mistakenly in the paper, Mel Bushman sends flowers and a note, saying he's gone back to his ex-wife.
On the show, Blanche is portrayed as a promiscuous woman, with her initials spelling out the word "BED." However, Viola Watkins calls her "Blanche Marie." She spends a great deal of her time with members of the opposite sex, and this is a source of both condemnation from and amusement to her roommates. Blanche's seemingly liberated human sexual behavior is a contrast to the sexual climate of the 1980s, when AIDS was beginning to seep into a nation's consciousness. However, in the episode "72 Hours," it is mentioned that Blanche was cognizant of the dangers of HIV and STDs; she always used protection and knows every lover's full sexual history. It is also implied in one episode that she has had numerous interracial sexual liaisons with African-American men, though no such relations were ever depicted on camera.
Age
Throughout the course of the show Blanche's precise age was never told. She always claimed to be in her late thirties or early forties, but none of the other women believed her, believing that she was lying due to her vain personality. Even the government had gotten involved. In an episode later in the series, Rose successfully got all of Blanche's documentation, but when she sat down with the other girls to go over the information she had received, in the age columns of all of papers it said "Deleted by Authority of the Governor", implying Blanche had slept with the governor to get the information regarding her age slipped from her record. In one episode, one of Blanche's ex-lovers mentioned her age as 68, although he later admitted that was fabricated.Children and grandchildren
At various times over the course of the series, Blanche mentions six different children, including two daughters (Janet and Rebecca, both of whom appeared in the series) and four sons (three of them—Biff, Doug, and Skippy—were mentioned in the episode "Bringing Up Baby," while the fourth, Matthew, was mentioned in the episode "To Catch a Neighbor" and made an onscreen appearance on an episode of The Golden PalaceThe Golden Palace
The Golden Palace is an American sitcom that originally aired on CBS from September 18, 1992, to May 14, 1993. The show was a spin-off and continuation of the sitcom The Golden Girls....
, played by southern comic Bill Engvall
Bill Engvall
William Ray "Bill" Engvall, Jr. is an American comedian and actor best known for his work as a stand-up comic and as a member of the Blue Collar Comedy group.-Early life:Bill Engvall was born in Galveston, Texas...
). During the series, Blanche learns that George also had a son named David (Mark Moses
Mark Moses
Mark W. Moses is an American actor, known for his roles of Paul Young on Desperate Housewives and Herman "Duck" Phillips on the AMC series Mad Men.-Life and career:...
), as the result of an affair. In the third season episode "Bringing Up Baby", when Dorothy questions an impulsive car purchase, Blanche says to her: "I have had four children, I have never had a Mercedes". This makes it possible that "Biff" or "Skippy" were nicknames for two of Blanche's sons.
During the course of the show, Blanche is revealed not to have been very 'hands-on' as a mother, as she frequently left her children to nannies and housekeepers. She had a strained relationship with both of her daughters, especially Janet, something that led to some of the most dramatic storylines as she expressed regrets that she wasn't there for her children more (the relationship between her four sons is never mentioned). However, Blanche slowly rebuilt her relationships with Janet and Rebecca throughout the series. By the time the series ended, both Rebecca and Janet had healed their relationships with their mother.
Blanche's daughter Rebecca was seen most often on the show, although she and Blanche had frequent falling outs and bitter fights. Prior to the show's start, they had had a falling over Rebecca's decision to drop out of school and take up modelling; then, they fought over Rebecca's verbally abusive boyfriend; later, they fought over Rebecca's decision to be artificially inseminated. They then feuded over Rebecca's choice of a "birthing center" instead of a hospital, and finally feuded again when Rebecca's believed Blanche was using her baby to "get men". In each case, they eventually made up again (something Blanche seems not to have ever done with Janet).
Blanche also has at least four grandchildren, David, Melissa, and Sarah (all born to Janet, who married a "Yankee" named Michael), as well as Rebecca's child, Aurora.
Blanche's grandson David visited the girls, but was unhappy and rebellious, due to problems in his home life (his parents fought and ignored him). After David confided in Blanche, she told Janet that she wanted David to live with her, leading to a bitter falling out between mother and daughter. David was depicted as being 14 at the time, which would have made him born in 1971. This would have made Blanche a grandmother at 39 or 40 years old, which means that Janet likely was a teenage mother (or is the result of a continuity error).
Relationship with her roommates
Blanche acts as co-roommate and landlord (until a housing inspection caused her to sell shares of the house) to Rose NylundRose Nylund
Rose Nylund was born May 1930 in St. Olaf, Minnesota. She is a fictional character featured on the popular 1980s situation comedy The Golden Girls, and its spin-off The Golden Palace. She was portrayed by Betty White for 8 years and 208 episodes.Rose was comically portrayed as naïve and simple,...
, Dorothy Zbornak
Dorothy Zbornak
Dorothy Hollingsworth , is a fictional character from the TV series The Golden Girls, portrayed by Bea Arthur for 7 years and 183 episodes. Dorothy was the strong, sarcastic, sometimes intimidating, and arguably most grounded of the four women in the house...
, and Sophia Petrillo
Sophia Petrillo
Sophia Petrillo is a fictional character from the TV series The Golden Girls, and its spin-offs The Golden Palace and Empty Nest. She was portrayed by Estelle Getty for 10 years and 258 episodes and was arguably the breakout character of the show...
. Throughout the series, she and Rose are often involved in the same activities, be it auditioning for a play or doing community service projects. Though she, like Dorothy and Sophia, is annoyed at times by Rose's constant storytelling, she saw her as both her best friend and a surrogate sister. To be sure, Blanche had her own collection of strange stories which she also shared from time to time, often tales of her rivalry with sisters Virginia and Charmaine or of the promiscuous stunts she pulled as a teenager.
Her relationship with Dorothy is mixed with envy and condemnation and sisterhood on both parts: Dorothy envies and condemns Blanche's sexual comfortability, while Blanche envies Dorothy's intelligence and condemns her fashion sense, among other things. And yet, both she and Dorothy at times isolate themselves from Rose, ganging up on her when the latter said anything particularly foolish, and taking turns hitting her on the head with a newspaper or magazine. Their relationship is also symbiotic: in one of the last episodes in the series, Dorothy admitted that Blanche has helped her be comfortable with her own sexuality, while Dorothy herself has always served as Blanche's other voice of reason. Although Blanche is only three years younger than Dorothy (born 1929) and one or two years younger than Rose (born 1930 or 1931), she frequently rubs in the fact that she is the youngest roommate in the house.
Blanche's relationship with Sophia is also interesting: Blanche sees her both as a mother figure and as a mean old lady, and Sophia sees her as one of her daughters and, very vocally, a streetwalker. (In the very first episode of the series, Sophia bluntly tells Blanche, "You look like a prostitute.")
In the Season Four episode "Yes, We Have no Havanas", Sophia and Blanche became rivals for the affections of an elderly Cuban gentleman named Fidel Santiago (Henry Darrow
Henry Darrow
Henry Darrow is a prolific Puerto Rican-American character actor of stage and film. Darrow is probably best remembered for his role as Big John Cannon's teasing brother-in-law, and Buck Cannon's favorite ranch hand, and best friend, Manolito Montoya, in the 1960s television series The High...
), and the two women traded particularly nasty insults with each other: Sophia called Blanche a "50-year-old mattress," and Blanche referred to Sophia as a "raisin in sneakers" and a "wrinkled old crow". The rivalry came to an abrupt end when Fidel died suddenly. As it turned out, Fidel was even more promiscuous than Blanche - the congregation at his funeral consisted entirely of women he had been romancing (except for Dorothy and Rose), causing Blanche to say "He had his burro hitched to every bed post in town!"
It was revealed in the episode "Love Under the Big Top" that Blanche didn't like tuna fish which was inconsistent with at least two other instances in the series. In the episode "Dorothy's Prized Pupil", Rose became her "wiedenfrugen" (personal assistant) to make up for losing Blanche's earrings (which Blanche actually lost herself while on a romantic date), and she stated that she hated making Blanche's "stinking tuna fish sandwiches" as a part of her daily task. Later, in the episode "What a Difference a Day Makes", Blanche decided to go on a diet and became agitated when Rose ate her "sensible meal," a tuna quiche.
Significance
Rue McClanahan said playing the role of Blanche made her "one of the most recognizable women in the world," and resulted in her being named the "Fifth most beloved celebrity over 55" in the world. She said the fame of Blanche Devereaux, on television "week after week for decades", made McClanahan inseparable from Blanche in the public eye.Blanche and the other three women were hailed as breakthrough television role models for older women, being attractive, stylishly dressed, and romantically active.