y Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY
That gravelly voice.
That intimidating stature.

That shock of gray hair.

Bea Arthur, who died Saturday of cancer at her Los Angeles home at the age of 86, was unmistakable. She was Maude, she was a Golden Girl, she was a Broadway baby — and most of all, she was a force of nature.

From stage to TV and back again, Arthur was a strong actress whose tough, no-nonsense approach to life was appealing, affirming and amusing. Her vigorous, dynamic personality and husky voice gave life to memorable characters through the years, particularly Maude in the hit TV series of the same name, who tackled groundbreaking issues in the 1970s and made Arthur a touchstone for the women's movement.

"Women regarded me as a Joan of Arc," she once said, "but I wasn't at all."

Her career, however, was one that left a mark in entertainment history, and it was shaped by events early in Arthur's life.

Native New Yorker Bernice Frankel was about 11 when her family, including an older sister and a younger sister, moved from New York to Cambridge, Md., where her father opened a clothing store. They were among the few Jewish residents. Always tall, the dark-haired young Bea reached her adult height of 5-foot-9-1/2 by age 12.

The self-conscious young Bernice took refuge in going to the movies, collecting pictures of Hollywood actors and daydreaming that she was a small, blonde, beautiful screen star — particularly June Allyson, she once said. She learned to delight her classmates with impersonations of Mae West.

"I started being funny to get accepted. I guess it happens to a lot of us oddballs," she said in a Toronto Star interview in 2002.

But it took a while for Arthur to find the footlights. After high school, she became a medical laboratory technician, but routine hospital work in Cambridge soon bored Arthur. She left for New York where she enrolled in the celebrated Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research.

She made her stage debut at that workshop in 1947. Among her fellow students were actors Harry Guardino, Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando and Gene Saks. She and Saks fell in love, and were married on May 28, 1950. Saks would go on to fame as a director of such movies as The Odd Couple, Cactus Flower and Brighton Beach Memoirs.

During the 1950's, to augment her income, Arthur sang in New York nightclubs and played bit parts on golden-age TV shows of Steve Allen, Sid Caesar, Jack Parr, Art Carney and Perry Como.

Norman Lear, who had become a fan, invited her to come to Hollywood in 1959 to appear on The George Gobel Show, of which he was producer-director. But after two episodes, she went back to New York for more theater, and in 1964, she rose to fame as Yente the matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof with Zero Mostel.

Two years later, Arthur received her greatest critical Broadway acclaim with Mame. The smash musical, directed by her husband and starring Angela Lansbury, delighted critics, who raved about Arthur's Vera Charles role.

Meanwhile, Lear kept bugging Arthur to try a guest role on his popular TV show, All in the Family. She put him off until 1971, when she went to Hollywood to visit her husband, who was then directing The Last of the Red Hot Lovers.

For her guest-shot stint, Lear created Maude Findlay, a cousin who came to care for the Bunker family during an illness. Cousin Maude gave Archie Bunker his comeuppance; she was every bit as outspoken, but was the complete opposite of prejudiced, narrow-minded Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O'Connor. A WASP matron, four-times married, Maude was proud of her liberal views.

Viewers loved it.

The response was so favorable that Lear developed a spinoff series with Maude as the central character. Maude premiered Sept. 12, 1972, with critics praising Maude's age and outspokenness.

Like All in the Family, Maude was controversial. The November 1972 two-part storyline that caused the greatest furor, Maude's Dilemma, involved Maude, at 47, discovering that she was pregnant, and after much debate, deciding to have an abortion. Another program tackled the topic of face-lifting, an operation undergone not only by Maude, but also by Arthur herself.

As the show took off, Arthur moved to California with her husband and their two adopted sons, Matthew (born July 14, 1961) and Daniel (born May 8, 1964) and her two dogs. A cook, gardener and a collector of antique furniture, she was also an animal rights activist and a frequent speaker at AIDS events. She had a large gay following.

When once told of drag-queen Bea Arthur look-alike competitions, she said, "I'm flattered," and added, "Of course I have gay friends — doesn't everybody?"

And when told she was dogged by rumors that she was a lesbian, her answer was, "I think it is because of the voice, but who cares?"

When Maude ended in 1978, Arthur's acrimonious marriage ended, too. She was offered lots of scripts for other series, but it wasn't until 1985 and The Golden Girls that she found another hit with her feisty Dorothy Zbornak character.

The show, about four older women in Florida, reunited her with Rue McClanahan, who became famous playing Arthur's best friend, the gullible Vivian, on Maude.

McClanahan said at the time, "We're not close friends, I can't say that. We don't socialize."

But, she added: "She likes to stay home and go bare-footed. I don't blame her. We certainly think highly of each other. Every third or fourth show, she squeezes my hand and says, 'God, I'm glad you're here.' I feel the same way."

McClanahan also described Arthur as reticent. "She doesn't talk much. She's very quiet and laid back. She's different. And I love acting with her."

In 1992, Arthur announced she was leaving The Golden Girls. With both Maude and Girls, the shows had to be canceled when Arthur decided to leave. She left when she thought each show was at its peak, and in both cases, the producers of the shows realized the shows just wouldn't be the same without her.

For a decade she kept a low profile, doing only the occasional movie. In 2002, she decided to return to Broadway with her one woman show, Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends.

She said at the time, "I really feel as if I've spent the majority of my adult life in that little box there," pointing to the television set during one interview. She said she never wanted to do TV again, although a 2000 appearance as a terrifying baby sitter on Malcolm in the Middle earned her an Emmy nomination, and she did a guest stint on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm as Larry David's mother in 2005.

In her one-woman stage show, Arthur didn't reveal a great deal about her life. She didn't talk about her longtime marriage to Saks, but did introduce the ballad, Where Do You Start? by saying: "This is a song about divorce, a subject that many of us here know something about."

She closed her eyes, opened them, then sang, "Where do you start? How do you separate the present from the past? How do you deal with all those dreams you hoped would last that didn't last?"

She was never one for regrets, instead carving out a reputation as a person who got the most out of life.

In the Toronto Star interview at the time of her Broadway show, Arthur was asked to comment on a widely known fondness for alcohol. She replied by saying, "I believe that you're here on Earth for a short time, and while you're here, you shouldn't forget it. I enjoy my life. I always remember that line from Mame: 'Life's a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death.' Do I look like I'm hungry? Or thirsty?" (source:usatoday.com)