TVSquad

One of the Golden Girls has died.

Estelle Getty, who played Bea Arthur's mother (even though Arthur was a year older in real life) on the NBC hit comedy Golden Girls (which also starred Betty White and Rue McClanahan), passed away this morning in Los Angeles. Getty was 84 years old and had been suffering from a disease known as Lewy Body Dementia for a number of years.

Getty appeared in several other TV shows over the years, including the Golden Girls spinoff The Golden Palace (which also starred a young Don Cheadle), Empty Nest, Nurses, Brotherly Love, Mad About You, Touched By An Angel, Blossom, Newhart, Hotel, and many others. She also appeared in the movies Tootsie, Mask, Mannequin, and Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!

Interesting trivia: Getty played her Sophia Petrillo character in no less than five different shows: Golden Girls, Empty Nest, The Golden Palace, Nurses, and Blossom. That's gotta be some sort of record. She also played a character named Sophia in an episode of Ladies Man in 2000, though the character had a different last name.

Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, here's some more casting news for upcoming network pilots:

Eliza Dushku will star in Nurses, a new dramedy pilot for FOX. Dushku joins Drew Sidora, who was also recently cast.

Nikki Cox will star in Fugly, a new comedy pilot for CBS, written by My Name if Earl creator Greg Garcia, about three sisters who decide to purchase one of them an extreme makeover.

Oliver Platt, last seen in the Showtime series Huff, will star in the ABC comedy pilot The Thick of It, about workers for a low-level congressman. The show is executive produced by Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz and based on the British comedy of the same name.

Chris Lowell (Veronica Mars) will join previously cast Tim Daly and Taye Diggs in the two-hour Grey's Anatomy episode meant to serve as a springboard to a possible Grey's Anatomy spinoff.

Steve Howey of Reba has been cast in The Beast, about a womanizing veterinarian who hates animals. Tucker Cawley, a writer and executive producer for Everybody Loves Raymond, will also write and executive produce the comedy pilot for FOX. The series is based on the British comedy Beast.

Fox has given the green light to three pilots that could appear on the network's fall schedule. The pilots are hour-long dramas about lawyers, nurses, and law clerks.

Canterbury's Law is about a "headstrong female defense attorney" who practically bends the law to get justice for her innocent clients. Supreme Courtships (arrrgh, what a dumb name) is an ensemble dramedy about the personal lives of six U.S. Supreme Court clerks. The untitled nurse project is another ensemble dramedy about nurses in a big-city hospital.

I think this is indicative of one of the main problems in television these days. Everything is either crime or medical. How many freakin' lawyer shows do we need? They're not that interesting! And I am sick to death of anything set in a hospital. At least with Heroes and Lost we have original settings and situations.

(S13E06) So, in the case of Ames vs. Kovac, the jury found in favor of the defendant. Shocker. What, Luka gets to keep his job? What will ER do now? Hi, I'm Jen, and I am reviewing ER this week for Rich Keller, who has a really cool gig tonight. In the interest of full disclosure, despite my opening snarkiness, I am a fervent, weekly fan of ER, and have been for years.

Poor Sam. First she breaks up with Luka, then she's kidnapped by her psycho ex-husband and is forced to kill him in cold blood. But things might be looking up for Linda Cardellini's character.

TV Guide is reporting that Kip Pardue is being brought on to the show as a love interest for Sam. He'll play a resident nurse.

You might not know the name, but Pardue (real name: Kevin Ian Pardue - that's where the Kip comes from) has been in on several TV shows, including House and 7th Heaven, and in movies such as Remember The Titans and The Rules of Attraction. Here's his IMDB page. The pics are all of the same person? He doesn't look the same in any two of them.