Actress Estelle Getty was born Estelle Scher in New York City on July 25, 1923. During her career, she appeared on stage, in television and in film. In 1982, she played the mother of Arnold Beckoff in Torch Song Trilogy on Broadway. Her best known television role was playing Sophia Petrillo on the sitcom The Golden Girls for which she won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. She also played the mother in the following movies: Mask, Copacabana, and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. She wrote an autobiography with Steve Delsohn entitled If I Knew Then, What I Know Now... So What? Later in life she suffered from Lewy body dementia and died of natural causes on July 22, 2008.
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