Who is Blanche Devereaux in The Golden Girls?

Show

The Golden Girls

Played by

Rue McClanahan

First episode

“The Engagement”Season 1, Episode 1, aired September 14, 1985

Role

Main cast

Network

NBC

Occupation

Art museum employee and homeowner

Show run

1985 to 1992

Also known as

Blanche, Blanche Elizabeth Devereaux, Blanche Hollingsworth, Devereaux

Blanche Devereaux is a Southern belle who believes no man can resist her, and she is usually right. Played by Rue McClanahan, she is vain, dramatic, and gloriously shameless, and she would also go to the wall for her friends.

On The Golden Girls, Blanche Devereaux's story runs through Rose Nylund (Roommate), Dorothy Zbornak (Roommate), and Sophia Petrillo (Roommate).

Other NBC sitcom characters from around the same time include Woody Boyd (Cheers) and Lilith Sternin (Cheers).

Who is Blanche Devereaux?

Blanche grew up in a wealthy family on a plantation outside Atlanta, the daughter of a larger-than-life father known as Big Daddy. She moved to Miami with her husband George and stayed after his death, and to fill the house she posted an ad for roommates on a grocery store bulletin board. Rose and then Dorothy answered it, and Dorothy's mother Sophia joined them in the pilot.

Blanche works at an art museum and is the mother of five children, including her daughter Rebecca. She has two sisters, Virginia and Charmaine, and a brother, Clayton, and her family visits supply some of the show's most emotional episodes.

Personality and comedy

Blanche's dating life is the most famous running joke on The Golden Girls. She describes her conquests in loving detail, treats every man in Miami as a potential admirer, and is very touchy about her age. Rue McClanahan leaned into a deliberately exaggerated Southern accent, explaining that Blanche wanted to be a romantic Southern heroine in the style of Vivien Leigh.

Beneath the vanity, Blanche is generous, brave, and loyal. She still mourns George, worries about being a good mother, and grows over the series in how she treats the people she loves. Some of her best scenes are the late-night kitchen talks where she lets the mask slip.

Key storylines

In the pilot Blanche gets engaged to a man named Harry, only for the wedding to collapse when he is arrested for bigamy. Later, Big Daddy announces he has sold the family home to chase a career as a country singer, and his death in season five leads to a painful rift with her sister Virginia. Blanche also wrestles with menopause, with her daughter Rebecca's abusive boyfriend, and later with Rebecca's choice to have a baby through artificial insemination.

In season six, a secret admirer appears to be George himself, in a storyline that plays on her deepest wish, and she comes to accept her brother Clayton when he tells her he is marrying the man he loves. In the finale, it is Blanche's uncle Lucas who sweeps Dorothy off to Atlanta.

Behind the scenes and legacy

The producers originally wanted Rue McClanahan to play the sweet, scattered Rose, since she had played a similar role on Maude, with Betty White as Blanche. Director Jay Sandrich suggested they switch, and McClanahan won the 1987 Emmy for lead actress in a comedy for "End of the Curse." In the pilot only, Blanche's last name is given as Hollingsworth, her maiden name in later episodes.

McClanahan continued as Blanche in the spin-off The Golden Palace, in which Blanche, Rose, and Sophia sell the house to run a Miami hotel. The four stars of the original show were named Disney Legends in 2009.

Blanche Devereaux: frequently asked questions

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