History Characters / TheGoldenGirls

* HiddenDepths: She's quite the hand around the house, can play a mean piano, is capable of doing minor electrical and plumbing work (probably a leftover from her farmgirl days). She also has a surprising knowledge of psychology and gets all the journals.

* CatchPhrase: "Shady Pines, Ma!"

* HollywoodDateless: She seems to be going out on dates every other week, and has dated doctors, teachers, business owners, even an Admiral (also admittedly a few losers, but even then that's hardly 'dateless'). To listen to the other girls, however, you'd think she had never had a single date. Blanche and Sophia (and very rarely, Rose) make fun of her for it -- though, ironically, ''Dorothy'' is the one who marries the former's uncle in the finale and leaves the latter to take care of Blanche and Rose, while Blanche and Sophia remain perpetually single, while Rose, the nicest to her, remains in a committed relationship with Miles but ends up breaking up with him in ''The Golden Palace.''

* AmbiguouslyBi: The show occasionally hinted that she'd had some experiences with women, or was at least open to the idea (though it could have been more of an AnythingThatMoves joke):

* {{Womanchild}}: Not in the same way as Rose, but several episodes feature Sophia going through something of a second adolescence and behaving quite a bit like a mischievous teenager: hanging out all night with rowdy crowds, dating bad boys, playing practical jokes... a couple of episodes even have plots more typical of teenage characters in fiction regarding her taking BurgerFool jobs for extra spending money and even getting her driver's license (renewed after it long expired in her case.) Dorothy lampshades it quite a few times, commenting no how strange a feeling it is to have the tables be turned and to essentially be in the role of parenting her own mother.

* VirginInAWhiteDress: She wore red at her wedding, because "me wearing white? Even 'I' couldn't keep a straight face!". She also wears red to the funeral of Dorothy's brother Phil, because she thinks it's a dress Phil would have liked (to wear).

* CompressedVice: Rose is revealed in one episode to have been addicted to pain killers for 15 years. Over the course of the episode, she goes through rehab and flat-out states that it will be a lifelong problem for her... only for it never to be mentioned again.

* BuxomIsBetter: Her ample bustline has been mentioned a couple of times, one time to psych Blanche out by pointing out that her shirt (a copy of Blanche's) only looks different on a busty woman.

* ReactionShot: Bea Arthur could sell these like nobody else. The camera frequently focuses on Dorothy's annoyed expressions to her roommates' foolishness.

* PlayingGertrude: She's actually younger than her on-screen daughter.

** The fact that even the Secret Service has a file on her (might even be linked to the above mentioned affair with a political candidate)
*** --> '''Blanche''':''(flirtatiously, to the agent interviewing her)'' "Let me know if you need to know anything else. I've got pictures."
*** --> '''Secret Service Agent ''': ''(bluntly)'' "So do we."
*** ''(a flustered Blanche quickly leaves)''

* DotingGrandparent: Didn't start out this way, but once she learned how much her grandson David was hurting because of his parents' fighting, she made a determined and sincere offer to take him in herself. Even after this, she remains a work in progress as far as this trope goes, as illustrated by her pretending Aurora is her ''daughter'' to try to impress a potential boyfriend, or going all StageMom and forcing a reluctant Melissa into a beauty pageant. In the end, though, Blanche realizes she was wrong and vows to try to do better.

* MiniatureSeniorCitizens: Sophia is the shortest among the main cast, especially compared to her gigantic daughter Dorothy.

* AlterKocker: Sophia was supposed to be a Sicilian Catholic. Estelle Getty, who was Jewish in RealLife, played her with many stereotypical Jewish New York traits. (In fact, Getty once went to the producers and asked them if they could just make Sophia Jewish, which would've made the character easier for her to play.) Her husband Salvatore was played the same way by Sid Melton, in a very BorschtBelt comedian style. This actually became a CastingGag as the series went on -- Sophia's Italian acquaintances were mostly played by Jewish actors.
* ArrangedMarriage: Had ''two'' (or three; sometimes she speaks of her marriage to Dorthy's father as one).

** Ironically, the one time Blanche ''encouraged'' Rose to swear (or

* DotingGrandparent: Didn't start out this way, but once she learned how much her grandson David was hurting because of his parents' fighting, she made a determined and sincere offer to take him in herself.
** Contrast this with how she pretends Aurora is her ''daughter'' to try to impress a potential boyfriend, or how she goes all StageMom in pushing a reluctant Melissa into entering a beauty pageant. In the end, though, Blanche realizes she was wrong and vows to try to do better.

%%* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: One of the most iconic examples.
* SmallParentHugeChild: Dorothy is at least a foot taller than her mother Sophia. While this can be partly attributed to Sophia being a {{Miniature Senior Citizen|s}}, flashback episodes show that Dorothy has always been considerably taller than Sophia. Dorothy's younger sister Gloria is nearly as tall as Dorothy, and their brother Phil is noted to be over six feet, so they qualify too. Even stranger is that Sophia's late husband was also very short, raising more questions about how the two of them consistently produced such tall children.