"Golden Girl" Getty

Actress Estelle Getty poses in West Hollywood, Calif., on Jan. 29, 1986. Getty, the diminutive actress who spent 40 years struggling for success before landing a role in 1985 as the sarcastic octogenarian Sophia Petrillo on the sitcom "The Golden Girls," died Tuesday, July 22, 2008, at her Los Angeles home. She was 84.

TV's "Golden Girls," clockwise from left, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Estelle Getty. All four stars won at least one Emmy Award throughout the series' run from 1985 to 1992.

Actress Estelle Getty poses in West Hollywood, Calif. Jan. 29, 1986. Carl Gettleman, one of her two sons, says the co-star of the TV show "The Golden Girls" died early Tuesday, July 22, 2008, at home in Los Angeles. Gettleman says she suffered from advanced dementia.

Actress Estelle Getty displays the Emmy she won at the 40th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Pasadena, Calif., Aug. 28, 1998. Getty won best supporting actress in a comedy series for her role of Sophia in "The Golden Girls." In 2000, she stopped making public appearances after revealing that she had Parkinson's Disease and osteoporosis. It was later revealed she a progressive brain disease known as Lewy Body Dementia.

Veteran actresses, from left, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur and Betty White, from the TV series "The Golden Girls" are shown during a break in taping in Hollywood on Dec. 25, 1985.