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It’s a sad day today, and it’s not just because the news has spread that Estelle Getty has passed away, but because we’re now seeing the sadness surrounding her life for these past few years. Gety had been rarely seen in recent years, the reason being that she had been suffering from advanced dementia.

Although she’d been a performer most of her adult life, Getty of course is most well-known for her role as Sophia on The Golden Girls, mother to Bea Arthur’s character. She was actually a year younger than Arthur and had a hard time convincing casting that she was Sophia. In looks it was questionable, but not in her patented sarcastic wit. She and Arthur traded barbs as mother and daughter just as easily as Getty rattled off criticisms to the characters of the other costars, Betty White and Rue McClanahan.

Of course the shame of Getty reaching fame only later in her career is that while she’s younger than Arthur, she was still an olden woman, in her early 60s at the start of the show and nearly 70 at its end. It was revealed in 2000 that she was suffering from Parkinson’s and osteoporosis and a few years later Alzheimer’s. Still later a better diagnosis was made. She didn’t have Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, but Lewy body dementia.

Getty is of course being remembered fondly by her costars. Arthur is remembering their comedic duo as one of the greatest ever, and saying she will be missed, while McClanahan is encouraging us to not feel badly, as Getty will always be with us in “her crowning achievement, Sophia.” It’s not really her passing that leaves me sad, though. It’s with the following tribute to her that appears to have been taped before her death.

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