RUE MCCLANAHAN, “BLANCHE” ON “GOLDEN GIRLS,” DEAD AT 76

Rue McClanahan, who won an Emmy for her performance as the character Blanche Devereaux on the long-running (1985-92) Golden Girls. has died in New York of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 76. In Golden Girls she played a middle-aged man-hungry woman living with three other women in New York. The others were played by Bea Arthur, Betty White and Estelle Getty. White is the sole survivor of the group. Getty died in July 2008; Arthur, in April 2009. “I treasured our relationship,” White told the Associated Press when told of McClanahan’s passing. “It hurts more than I even thought it would, if that’s even possible.”