Estelle Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success on the stage before landing the role of a lifetime as sarcastic octogenarian Sophia on TV's The Golden Girls has died.

Getty, who was 84, had been suffering from advanced dementia for some years. She died early on Tuesday at
her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman.

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"She was loved throughout the world in six continents, and if they loved sitcoms in Antarctica she would have been loved on seven continents," her son said.

"She was one of the most talented comedic actresses who ever lived."

The Golden Girls, which chronicled the lives of four female retirees sharing a house in Miami, grew out of NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff's belief that television was ignoring its older viewers.

'Not old enough' for role

Three of its stars had already appeared in previous series: Bea Arthur in Maude; Betty White in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rue McClanahan in Mama's Family.

The last character to be cast was Sophia Petrillo, the feisty 80-something mother of Bea Arthur's character - and Getty almost didn't get the role.

Then in her early 60s, she flunked her Golden Girls audition twice because she didn't look old enough to play 80.

"I could understand that," she told an interviewer a year after the show began. "I walk fast, I move fast, I talk fast."

For her third audition, however, she came prepared - wearing dowdy clothes and telling an NBC makeup artist, "To you this is just a job. To me it's my entire career down the toilet unless you make me look 80."

The artist did, Getty got the job and won two Emmy awards for her performance.

Talent for sharp one-liners

That recognition was the culmination of a long battle for success during which Getty worked low-paying office jobs to help support her family while she tried to make it as a stage actress.

"I knew I could be seduced by success in another field, so I'd say, 'Don't promote me, please,"' she recalled.

She also appeared in small parts in a handful of films and TV movies during that time, including Tootsie and Deadly Force.

After her success in The Golden Girls, other roles came her way. She played Cher's mother in Mask, Sylvester Stallone's mother in Stop or My Mom Will Shoot and Barry Manilow's mother in the TV film Copacabana.

The Golden Girls, which ran from 1985 to 1992, was an immediate hit, and Sophia, who began as a minor character, soon evolved into a major one.

Audiences particularly loved the verbal zingers the petite Getty - who would only ever admit she was "under five feet and under 100 pounds" - would hurl at the other three.

Determined to succeed

When McClanahan's libidinous character Blanche once complained that her life was an open book, Sophia shot back, "Your life's an open blouse."

Getty had gained a knack for one-liners in her late teens when she did standup comedy at a Catskills hotel. Female comedians were rare in those days, however, and she bombed.

Undeterred, she continued to pursue a career in entertainment, and while her parents were encouraging, her father also insisted that she learn office skills so she would have something to fall back on.

Born Estelle Scher to Polish immigrants in New York, Getty fell in love with theatre when she saw a vaudeville show at the age of four.

She married New York businessman Arthur Gettleman (the source of her stage name) in 1947, and they had two sons, Carl and Barry. The marriage prevailed despite her long absences on the road and in The Golden Girls.
 
Getty is survived by her sons Carl and Barry, her brother and her sister.