Dorothy Zbornak

Dorothy Zbornak
File:Dorothybeaarthur.jpg
First appearance	"The Engagement" (The Golden Girls) September 14th, 1985
Last appearance	"Seems Like Old Times Pt. 2" (The Golden Palace) November 6th, 1992
In-universe information
Occupation	substitute teacher
Family	Salvador Petrillo (father; deceased) Sophia Petrillo (mother; deceased) Gloria (sister) Phillip "Phil" Petrillo (brother, deceased) Katherine (niece) Angelo (uncle) Angela (aunt; deceased) Jim (nephew)
Spouse	Stanley Zbornak (July 1946-1984, divorced) Lucas Hollingsworth (May 1992- April 2009) (her death)
Children	Michael Zbornak (son, with Stan) Kate Zbornak (daughter, with Stan) Robby (grandson)

Dorothy Zbornak - (1929- April 25, 2009) (nee Petrillo), portrayed by the late Beatrice Arthur for 7 years and 183 episodes, is a character from the TV series The Golden Girls. Dorothy was the strong, sarcastic, sometimes intimidating, and arguably most grounded of the four women in the house. In the 1000th issue of Entertainment Weekly, Dorothy Zbornak was selected as the Grandma for "The Perfect TV Family."

Family

Dorothy Petrillo was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929, to Italian immigrants Sophia and Salvador Petrillo, and was nicknamed "Pussycat" by her mother, and "Spumoni Face" by her father. She has two younger siblings: brother Phil, a cross-dresser, who died later in the show's run; and a sister, Gloria, who was nicknamed "Kitten" and married into money, and with whom Dorothy was sometimes estranged. In the fourth season episode Foreign Exchange, Dorothy wondered whether she is the biological daughter of the Petrillos, since Dominic and Philomena Bosco claimed that the hospital switched babies. However, in the third season episode "Mother's Day," Sophia Petrillo's mother is also played by Bea Arthur, so it is implied that Dorothy and Sophia are biologically related. In that episode and three others which took place in Dorothy's young adulthood, Dorothy Zbornak was portrayed by a tall, dark-haired actress named Lynnie Greene. In the episode "Clinton Avenue Memoirs," Dorothy was shown as a young child (played by Jandi Swanson) jealous of the attention that her parents were giving to her baby brother Phil, until her father tells her that he loves her very much.

She was a "bookworm", and an over-achiever in high school. Yet, she suffered from low self-esteem, in part because one previous boyfriend was emotionally abusive, while another one supposedly stood her up on the night of her prom. In reality, he did show up, but was disrespectful toward Sophia, who did bloob not like the way he was dressed or his attitude, and turned him away, without telling Dorothy. Dejected, she later accepted a date with Stanley Zbornak (Herb Edelman) because she "felt she couldn't do any better". She became pregnant while still in high school, resulting in a shotgun wedding to Stan in 1946. The marriage produced two children: Kate and Michael, who both appeared on the show. However, both children were presented as being in their 20s during their appearances on the show, making them too young to have been the cause of the shotgun wedding.

Stan and Dorothy eventually moved to Miami, but divorced after 38 years due to Stan's infidelity. In the first season episode "The Return of Dorothy's Ex," Stan mentions how they bought property together when honeymooning in Miami.

Career

Dorothy worked as a high school substitute teacher of American History (also her college major) and English. She also taught a night-school course for adults wishing to complete their high school equivalency. Dorothy also had summer and part-time jobs, which included tutoring and working alongside Blanche at the museum (causing jealousy after Dorothy appeared to have become the boss's favorite).

Characteristics

While often mocked as a manly and sexually unattractive woman by her two roommate friends due to her great height and deep voice, Dorothy is also in possession of many talents. In one episode, she is able to upstage Blanche at the latter's favorite bar, the Rusty Anchor, by singing and thus winning the admiration of Blanche's many suitors. At another point, remembering how funny she could be in high school, Dorothy tries her hand at doing stand-up comedy, in the end winning over her audience by poking fun at her own life and bringing such subjects up as menopause with its hot flashes.

Dorothy Zbornak can be comedically sarcastic, especially towards her less-than-sophisticated roommate, Rose, and man-obsessed Blanche. Their comfort level with each other is so great that they can laugh at each others comments, without their feelings getting hurt. Additionally, her mother Sophia has a tendency to borrow money from her, with or without Dorothy's permission. Despite the ridicule, Dorothy regards her roommates to be family. She is very comforting to them, often giving good advice. However, there are times when Rose and Blanche are scared of her, specifically when she gets angry. Blanche reminded Rose of the time the latter had lost Dorothy's keys, to which Rose remembered that "she uprooted a mighty sequoia".

During the run of the show, it is suggested by her actions that Dorothy is likely a Democrat, although she never announced her party affiliation. She had a Michael Dukakis bumper sticker (covering a Walter Mondale bumper sticker) and planned to confront then President George H.W. Bush when he visited Miami.

Major events

After her divorce, Dorothy moved into a home in Miami, Florida, with Blanche Devereaux and Rose Nylund. Shortly thereafter, her mother, Sophia Petrillo, moved in after her nursing home, Shady Pines, burned down. This was a running gag during the show's run, where Sophia would often refer to Shady Pines as a prison, and Dorothy would defend it as a lovely retirement village. Other times, when Dorothy would become exasperated with her mother or try to get Sophia to listen to her, Dorothy would threaten "Shady Pines, Ma!," to which Sophia would immediately fall in line. Dorothy shared a unique relationship with yerp her roommates, one often laced with her famously sardonic comments; the four shared a home for seven years, and in more than one episode it was pointed out that, despite a lack of blood relation, they were as much a family as any other household.

During the course of the show, Dorothy saw both of her children get married: Kate, to a podiatrist named Dennis, and Michael to a woman named Lorraine, a singer in his band, whom he had gotten pregnant. Lorraine was African-American, and almost twice Michael's age, which initially did not sit well with Dorothy because she felt Lorraine was far too old for Michael (Lorraine's family didn't want her to marry Michael because he was white). Kate's husband, Dennis, cheated on her at one point, but she ultimately forgave him, almost causing Dorothy and Kate to stop speaking, but they also quickly reconciled. Lorraine left Michael later in the series, and there was no specific mention of his child with Lorraine (Dorothy's grandchild) thereafter. Before Lorraine, Michael had previously slept with Rose's daughter Bridget. Dorothy did have grandchildren, but it was never specified whether they were Michael's or Kate's children.

Like the other women living in the house, the series saw Dorothy progress through her fair share of romances, with her love life often coming into criticism by her mother. Ex-husband Stanley made regular attempts throughout the series to "win her back", and nearly re-married Dorothy, though in the end she called it off after Stanley and his lawyer, the famed Marvin Mitchelson, presented her with a pre-nuptial agreement to sign.

Some of Dorothy's suitors turned out to have less-than-virtuous characters. Elliot Clayton, a respected doctor, made a pass at Blanche, and when Blanche told Dorothy about it, Dorothy accused Blanche of making it all up, and wanting Elliot for herself. Blanche, deeply hurt that Dorothy would believe Elliot's word over hers, announced she was kicking Dorothy out of the house, and this would have ended their friendship for good had Rose not exposed Elliot for the liar he was on the day Dorothy was set to move out. During the battle, one of Dorothy's classic lines was this: "It's not enough that you've had half of the men in Dade County, you want to have everyone else's men, it's PATHETIC!"

Another suitor turned out to be a married man, Glen O'Brien (portrayed by Jerry Orbach), which led Dorothy to break off the relationship when she remembered how much it hurt to be cheated on by her then-husband. She dated him again a few years later when he was divorced, but she broke off with him again because she felt that the only reason he wanted to be with her is because he didn't like being divorced and alone. Yet another prospect, named Eddie, was the best lover Dorothy ever had, but Dorothy finally had to break up with Eddie as well because their relationship never progressed past the physical stage. Her high school teacher, Mr. Gordon, whom she had a crush on, came back into her life many years later, only to take credit for an article that she had written. Stan's brother, Ted, told her that he had a crush on her since they were young. They then "spent the night" together, nearly destroying her friendship with Blanche, who had gone out with Ted earlier that night. Later, Ted asked Dorothy to baby-sit kids belonging to a stewardess that he wanted to date, making Dorothy feel humiliated. However, Dorothy got her revenge when she announced to everyone in the nightclub they were meeting in that he was impotent before she left.

A few other suitors were portrayed by well-known actors, including Dick Van Dyke and Leslie Nielsen. Leslie Nielsen played Lucas Hollingsworth, an uncle of Blanche (he was Blanche's father's brother). Blanche was excited to hear that he was coming to visit her in Miami, but, because of a previous engagement (a supposedly very important tennis date), she pawned him off on Dorothy. The date was not a success in fact, it was rather dull, and both Dorothy and Lucas were angered with Blanche for her inconsiderate attitude. To get even with her, Dorothy and Lucas decided to fake an engagement. They played it up for weeks, angering and annoying Blanche. However, during the entire ruse, Dorothy and Lucas fell in love for real, he proposed and she accepted. Despite Stan's attempt to try to derail her love to Lucas, he took her to the church in style, and although he wanted to say something, he didn't. With that, Dorothy moved to Hollingsworth Manor in Atlanta, and moved on with her life. At first, Sophia was to move with her, but she decided to remain in Miami with Blanche and Rose.

In spite of her strength, Dorothy does have phobias, namely hospitals and flying. She eventually managed to conquer both her fears, however, with help from her friends.

In keeping with the show's practice of raising social awareness, a two-part episode involved Dorothy suffering from extreme exhaustion, which was ultimately determined to be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; Susan Harris, the show's co-writer, also suffered from the then-unknown condition. In an earlier episode, Dorothy's friend, Jean, a lesbian, came to Miami for a visit, and struck up a close friendship with Rose, with whom Jean soon realized she was in love. Dorothy was also hello shown to have a recurring gambling problem that eventually caused her to seek help through Gamblers Anonymous. She started smoking cigarettes again after quitting many years earlier, because of stress from her mother's re-marriage and work. Presumably, she was able to kick the habit, since we never see her with a cigarette again. In the episode Stan Takes A Wife, Dorothy states that she is a Leo during a conversation. This information, combined with her birth year of 1929, means that she is 56 when the first season begins and 63 when the final season of The Golden Palace goes off the air.

Dorothy also appeared in two episodes of The Golden Girls' short-lived successor, The Golden Palace. She also appeared in one episode of Empty Nest, entitled Dumped, where her favorite nephew Jim dumps Barbara (Kristy McNichol).

• According to the episode Mary Has A Little Lamb, Dorothy's childhood nickname was "Moose".

External links

• Dorothy's biography on Lifetime TV's website.
• Lifetime TV's site for The Golden Girls