Romance Rewind
Love on the Lanai! Who Did ‘The Golden Girls’ End Up With?
The beauty of television is that the flame of a love story can sizzle and be smothered in a single episode.
Few shows knew this better than The Golden Girls, the sharp-tongued comedy about four women living in a lavish Miami home starring Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak, Betty White as Rose Nylund, Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux, and Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo. In a single 22-minute episode of the series, the women would often meet new men, fall in love, and sometimes even receive marriage proposals. It was like speed dating — but on TV time.
The real love story of the series was always going to be the women at its core, but that didn’t stop them from trying to find husbands who could sweep them off their feet. Did it work, though? Where did they all land when the series came to an end in 1992 after seven seasons?
Grab some cheesecake, head out to the lanai, and refresh your memory on who won the hearts of The Golden Girls.
Touchstone Television / Everett Collection
Who did Dorothy end up with on The Golden Girls?
Although The Golden Girls was an ensemble, the end of the series hinged completely on the love life of Dorothy — and Arthur’s desire to leave the show. Throughout the series, Dorothy dated a few men, but she always came back to her ex-husband, Stan (Herb Edelman). Or rather, to be fair, he always came back to her.
Finally, in the series finale, she meets Lucas Hollingsworth (Leslie Nielsen), who just so happens to be Blanche’s uncle. In the true fashion of the series, Nielsen only appears in the final episode. And yet, he does what no other man could do. Across the two-part episode, viewers watch Dorothy and Lucas’ enemies-to-lovers story in its entirety, rather hastily culminating in their marriage and her decision to move out of the house, leave Miami, and make a new home in her husband’s manor in Atlanta. It is a whirlwind relationship that changes the dynamic of the group forever before dropping the curtain on the whole series. But it also leaves the remaining three roommates unsure of what their next move should be. Speaking of…
Touchstone Television / Everett Collection
Who did Blanche end up with on The Golden Girls?
While it was Blanche’s family that Dorothy married into at the end of The Golden Girls, Blanche’s story continues on in Miami in the one-season-wonder spinoff The Golden Palace. Blanche, Rose, and Sophia decide to invest their money and friendship into a dying hotel with only two staff members: Roland Wilson (Don Cheadle), the hotel’s manager; and Chuy Castillos (Cheech Marin), the hotel’s chef.
Keeping a hotel running smoothly doesn’t leave much time for romance for any of the three ladies. Still, Blanche is not to be deterred from keeping up her flirtatious reputation while co-managing The Golden Palace, dating a cattle rancher, and a traveling greyhound dog trainer in back-to-back episodes. She also falls hard for a gigolo played by Barry Bostwick. The series was cancelled after its first season. It means audiences never learned who Blanche ends up with outside of her continued friendship with the ladies.
Touchstone Television / Everett Collection
Who did Rose end up with on The Golden Girls?
Similarly, Rose’s romantic life is left up in the air at the end of The Golden Palace. But at the end of The Golden Girls, she is still in her serious relationship with Miles Webber (Harold Gould), a college professor and former mob accountant. The pair even talk of marriage at the end of Season 7, but early in The Golden Palace’s run, they break up because Miles is in love with another woman. Later in the season, Rose encourages him to marry this woman at the hotel. So Rose ends the series’ one-season run as a single woman.
Touchstone Television / Everett Collection
Who did Sophia end up with on The Golden Girls?
Rarely as romantically active as her daughter, Dorothy, and her two roommates, Blanche and Rose, Sophia always had stories of her love affairs with the likes of Babe Ruth, Sigmund Freud, Winston Churchill, and Pablo Picasso. During Season 4 of the show’s run, she has one significant relationship with Max Weinstock (Jack Gilford), her first husband and Sal’s former business partner with whom she held grudges.
In time, she forgives him, and the two end up marrying, even though they quickly realize it will never work and break up. However, because of their religious beliefs, the two never divorced after their separation. So technically, The Golden Girls ends with both Dorothy and Sophia being married women, even though the latter has been estranged from her husband for three seasons.
