"It's like we say in St. Olaf, Christmas without fruitcake is like St. Sigmund's Day without the headless boy."
This article is incomplete. You can help the Golden Girls Wiki by expanding it.
The Actor is the fourteenth episode of the second season of The Golden Girls and the thirty-ninth episode overall. Directed by Terry Hughes and written by Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan, it premiered on NBC-TV on January 17th, 1987.
When a handsome actor comes to Miami to star in a play at the local community theater, he dates Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy simultaneously, leading each of them to believe he will marry them.
Plot[]
The girls decide to audition for their local theater production, a spoof of "Picnic" after learning that an attractive and famous actor, Patrick Vaughn, will be the lead. All three girls audition to play the lead Josie just so they can catch the man's eye, Blanche ever tries to use inflatables in her blouse only for them to pop. Unfortunately, Patrick chose Phyllis Hammerow to play Josie but he starts having affairs with all three women, not realising that they shared a house and each try to hide it from the other. Sophia meanwhile has a part time job in at Captain Jack's Seafood Shanty despite Dorothy's forbidding it.
Opening Night arrives and Dorothy is forced to play the Sheriff after the actor falls sick, Rose was to gift Patrick a Red Rose only for Blanche to convince her it was bad luck, when she tries to do the same with Phyllis she reveals that she was dating Patrick. The show starts and Blanche, Dorothy and Rose discover the truth, they confront Patrick along with the rest of the female cast members of his cheating, Patrick apologises then leaves and the audience thinking that it was part of the show give it a standing ovation.[1]
Rue McClanahan costarred in a 1986 production of Picnic, the play this episode spoofs, filmed for Showtime.
Lloyd Bochner, who plays Patrick in this episode, plays the hairdresser Eduardo in the Season 4 episode "Rites of Spring".[2]
This episode aired on Betty White's 65th birthday.
Sophia only appears in the first five minutes of the episode. This could have been due to illness, as Estelle Getty sounded like she had a cold in her two scenes onscreen.
Goofs[]
When Phyllis Hammerow walks on stage with a hand fan, she gives a quick flick of her wrist to open it, but the fan quite splits in half. She goes on ignoring it (although a couple of studio audience members laughed), and in the next shot the fan is opened and unbroken, which probably means that the break wasn't supposed to be a joke.
