Arts & Entertainment
Remembering Rue
‘Golden Girls’ actress wanted fans to have a chance to own her belongings
The late Rue McClanahan with her gay best friend, Michael J. LaRue. (Photo courtesy Nik Pressley)
Some people can’t stand having stuff around they don’t use. Rue McClanahan was not one of them.
The “Golden Girls” actress, who died at age 76 in 2010 of a brain hemorrhage, wanted fans to have a chance to have her many personal belongings. Her best gay friend, Michael J. LaRue, has organized her items in a series of sales. The two met at Studio 54 of all places (for an animal charity event) about 10 years before she died and quickly became the closest of friends, LaRue says.
“For some reason, we could just crack each other up all the time,” LaRue says. “We just became really good friends. She always joked about marrying me so she could be Rue LaRue, but of course that wouldn’t have worked.”
LaRue, who was collaborating with the actress on a stage adaptation of her memoirs, says McClanahan was a keeper and collector.
“Let me tell you, that woman was a shopper and she saved everything,” he says. “She had this sprawling urban oasis in mid-town Manhattan … she had 13 closets in the house and five external storage areas and you couldn’t fit a paperclip in any one of them.”
As per McClanahan’s instructions, after family and friends had their pick, the rest goes to auction. Some was sold in Beverly Hills. A large sampling, including several scripts, costumes and collectibles from “The Golden Girls,” are available for purchase at estateofrue.com. The items are direct purchase and some are available for about $100.
“She really wanted the fans to have a chance to have what they wanted,” he says. “This isn’t about generating a zillion dollars. It’s about getting the stuff out there.”
LaRue says he’s “not a stuff person.” He has a drawing McClanahan made for him, her ashes and her Emmy. Her only child, her son Mark who lives in Texas, also took many items he wanted. In all, McClanahan named 22 beneficiaries in her will.
LaRue says McClanahan was a great pal. In addition to the work on the autobiography adaptation (“It was tight and really coming together when she got sick,” he says), a film crew followed the actress around for two years while she worked on it. Of the 150 hours they shot, a documentary is being made LaRue hopes will be finished within 18 months or two years.
LaRue says McClanahan was completely unguarded with him and had high regard for her fellow actresses, Betty White and the late Bea Arthur, though Arthur didn’t particularly care for White.
“Betty and Rue were friends and Rue and Bea were friends, and they all loved Estelle (Getty),” he says. “Susan Harris told Rue, ‘Thank God you’re here to play mediator. This show would never work without you.’”
The actresses, though, were always professional with each other, LaRue says. On taping nights, they would wait until all four were ready to go to the commissary. A reunion in which their segments were filmed separately was done because of logistics, not animosity LaRue says.
“She used to say she was nothing like Blanche, but that was such bullshit,” LaRue says of his pal. “I mean come on, she had six husbands … she was like Blanche in a lot of ways.”
The ultimate, LaRue says, was watching “Golden Girls” reruns with McClanahan, who also had starring roles on “Maude” and “Mama’s Family” in addition to the 70 movies and 250 theatrical plays she was in over her lifetime.
“We’d sit there watching and she’d say, ‘Listen to that, listen to that.’ It wasn’t about her performance. She was always pointing out how brilliant the writing was.”
Denali (@denalifoxx) of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” performed at Pitchers DC on April 9 for the Thirst Trap Thursday drag show. Other performers included Cake Pop!, Brooke N Hymen, Stacy Monique-Max and Silver Ware Sidora.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Arts & Entertainment
In an act of artistic defiance, Baltimore Center Stage stays focused on DEI
‘Maybe it’s a triple-down’
By LESLIE GRAY STREETER | I’m always tickled when people complain about artists “going political.” The inherent nature of art, of creation and free expression, is political. This becomes obvious when entire governments try to threaten it out of existence, like in 2025, when the brand-new presidential administration demanded organizations halt so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programming or risk federal funding.
Baltimore Center Stage’s response? A resounding and hearty “Nah.” A year later, they’re still doubling down on diversity.
“Maybe it’s a triple-down,” said Ken-Matt Martin, the theater’s producing director, chuckling.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
‘La Lucci’
By Susan Lucci with Laura Morton
c.2026, Blackstone Publishing
$29.99/196 pages
They’re among the world’s greatest love stories.
You know them well: Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Abelard and Heloise. Phoebe and Langley. Cliff and Nina. Jesse and Angie, Opal and Palmer, Palmer and Daisy, Tad and Dixie. Now read “La Lucci” by Susan Lucci, with Laura Morton, and you might also think of Susan and Helmut.
When she was a very small girl, Susan Lucci loved to perform. Also when she was young, she learned that words have power. She vowed to use them for good for the rest of her life.
Her parents, she says, were supportive and her family, loving. Because of her Italian heritage, she was “ethnic looking” but Lucci’s mother was careful to point out dark-haired beauties on TV and elsewhere, giving Lucci a foundation of confidence.
That’s just one of the things for which Lucci says she’s grateful. In fact, she says, “Prayers of gratitude are how I begin and end each day.”
She is particularly grateful for becoming a mother to her two adult children, and to the doctors who saved her son’s life when he was a newborn.
Lucci writes about gratitude for her long career. She was a keystone character on TV’s “All My Children,” and she learned a lot from older actors on the show, and from Agnes Nixon, the creator of it. She says she still keeps in touch with many of her former costars.
She is thankful for her mother’s caretakers, who stepped in when dementia struck. Grateful for more doctors, who did heart-saving work when Lucci had a clogged artery. Grateful for friends, opportunities, life, grandchildren, and a career that continues.
And she’s grateful for the love she shared with her husband, Helmut Huber, who died nearly four years ago. Grateful for the chance to grieve, to heal, and to continue.
And yet, she says of her husband: “He was never timid, but I know he was afraid at the end, and that kills me down to my soul.”
“It’s been 15 years since Erica Kane and I parted ways,” says author Susan Lucci (with Laura Morton), and she says that people still approach her to confirm or deny rumors of the show’s resurrection. There’s still no answer to that here (sorry, fans), but what you’ll find inside “La Lucci” is still exceptionally generous.
If this book were just filled with stories, you’d like it just fine. If it was only about Lucci’s faith and her gratitude – words that happen to appear very frequently here – you’d still like reading it. But Lucci tells her stories of family, children and “All My Children,” while also offering help to couples who’ve endured miscarriage, women who’ve had heart problems, and widow(ers) who are spinning and need the kindness of someone who’s lived loss, too.
These are the other things you’ll find in “La Lucci,” in a voice you’ll hear in your head, if you spent your lunch hours glued to the TV back in the day. It’s a comfortable, fun read for fans. It’s a story you’ll love.
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