Jon: Please welcome Bea Arthur!

[Jon and Bea shake hands, hug, and sit down]

Jon: Hello!

Bea: How lovely, how lovely!

Jon: Very nice to meet you.

Bea: Very nice to meet *you* except I feel I know you because I, I love the show.

Jon: Do you really?

Bea: Oh, I love it!

Jon: So you get cable?

Bea: Oh yes.

Jon: Well, that's nice!

Bea: But I'm in L.A.

Jon: Oh you're in Los Angeles.

Bea: Yes.

Jon: So what about coming to Broadway, then? When did you decide, "I wanna get back and do the live show, I wanna get back on stage and - and -

Bea: I decided that after I left "The Golden Girls" and decided I really didn't want to do any more episodic television.

Jon: Because of how drunk Estelle Getty always was on the set. She was a problem!

[Bea laughs, audience laughs]

Bea: Yes I know, I know, but we kept it quiet.

Jon: [laughs]

Bea: No, but I love you; I saw you on the Dennis Miller Show but I think I saw you first - what was the name? - Cam? Up in Boston? The thing that Dennis Leary -

Jon: Cam Neely.

Bea: Cam Neely, yes.

Jon: You watch a lot of Comedy Central.

Bea: Yes that's my favorite.

Jon: You have to stop. It's not a good channel. We need to get you another - I'm gonna send you VCR tapes. Movies and such.

Bea: Oh.

Jon: Now, you decided, "I wanna get back and do the live show."

Bea: Yes, yes.

Jon: I actually played a theatre in - maybe it was eastern Pennsylvania or Willksburry - you had just played there, and they raved about your show.

Bea: Yes.

Jon: Raved about it.

Bea: Yes, yes.

Jon: Are you enjoying doing it?

Bea: Oh it's wonderful, it's wonderful.

Jon: Really?

Bea: When are you coming?

Jon: To your show?

Bea: Yes.

Jon: I - I have a show that *I* do. I can't - uh - what time is your show?

Bea: Well, 8:00.

Jon: Oh. What time is it now?

Bea: No it's at 8:00 and we do a couple of matinees.

Jon: Is that true?

Bea: Yes.

Jon: And I could, uh, uh, get a couple of seats -

Bea: And I want you to see it.

Jon: Really?

Bea: I want you to see the show. Yes.

Jon: I heard it's dirty.

Bea: Yes.

Jon: Someone told me it's dirty.

Bea: Well, it's . . .

Jon: A little dirty.

Bea: A little ribald I think.

Jon: Ribald. Bawdy.

Bea: Yes, a little bawdy.

Jon: Filthy.

Bea: [Laughts]

Jon: It's not?

Bea: No, but it's racy. Racy.

Jon: Right. Now are these stories joke-type-things or actual stories that happened?

Bea: Well they're all actual stories.

Jon: Oh really? So things that - so you've had a pretty racy, uh . . .

Bea: No. No. It's, you know, it's things I've heard about, or things I've witnessed or things I've taken part in.

Jon:[Laughs] uh-huh.

Bea: But, um, no, and it's not all that kind of thing. There's some fabulous music in there.

Jon: Oh, you sing?

Bea: Oh yes, yes.

Jon: What's one of - give me one of the songs that you do.

Bea: Uh, well I don't know that you'd know them because they're really not current -

Jon: Well I'm a big, uh, I'm a big fan of the old tunes.

Bea: Oh really? Well I do - are you serious about that?

Jon: Yes I am. I used to play in - when I was a kid I played in a big band of all kids. The gimmick - we were all terrible - but the gimmick was that we were kids that played, like, "String of Pearls", "Take the A Train", "Golden Mary's", that sort of stuff -

Bea: Oh, oh, oh.

Jon: We'd go to VFW halls and -

Bea: Well, well, I do a couple of Kurt Weill's songs.

Jon: Okay, okay.

Bea: But, you know, goodies.

Jon: Yeah, good stuff.

Bea: And stuff that Billy Goldenberg wrote, you know -

Jon: I don't know.

Bea: He does the show with me. He's a fabulous pianist, musician, arranger -

Jon: Is it just you and this guy sitting at the piano?

Bea: Yes, yes.

Jon: The whole time?

Bea: Yes, yes.

Jon: How long's the show?

Bea: 95 minutes, about an hour and a half.

Jon: You're kidding me! I do a half hour a night and I'm ready to take a nap! You're doing 95 minutes?

Bea: Yes! And matinees on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.

Jon: I hope they're paying you some bucks for this. This is too much! Now, are people - have you had a nice turnout of friends of yours?

Bea: Oh yes.

Jon: Who's come to see you that we might know? Adrienne Barbeau?

Bea: No. Oh my God.

Jon: Do you remember Adrienne Barbeau?

Bea: Of course I remember her, and I knew you would to.

Jon: Can I tell you how crazy I was about Adrienne Barbeau?

Bea: Yes, everyone was.

Jon: [Turns toward audience] Do you guys know Adrienne Barbeau from the old Maude show?

[Some people shout "Yeah!" and applaud]

Bea: It's really interesting, you know, Adrian has achieved what she really wanted in life. She is a mother. She has three children and, uh, she gave birth at age 50 to twins.

Jon: You're kidding me.

Bea: No, no.

Jon: She's a mother and she's raising children, and there I was, all these years; filthy, filthy thoughts about Adrienne Barbeau.

Bea: I know, I know.

Jon: And all, and all - terrible. It's not right. How long did it take you to prepare this show?

Bea: Oh my God. We've been working on it off and on for about three or four years now.

Jon: Right.

Bea: You know, I'd be doing something and then Billy'd be doing something and then -

Jon: Billy Goldenberg. He'd be telling you that he's doing something - he's not doing anything.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah.

Jon: He's sitting around the piano waiting for Bea Arthur to get ready to do the show.

Bea: He may be watching this.

Jon: Is he really? You wanna piece, Billy? You want it? No, that's great, thought. I am going to come to the show.

Bea: Please do.

Jon: Everyone here, that works here, was very excited to have you on today. It was a very popular choice.

Bea: I know, I know, yes, thank you.

Jon: Nah, it's no problem at all.

[Audience cheers]

Bea: Thank you.

Jon: Do you think I should get on that theatre thing? I should get on that theatre thing at some point and do like a little show on Broadway.

Bea: With music?

Jon: [Laughs] You seem very surprised.

Bea: No, but you told me that you were in the band. What did you play?

Jon: I played trumpet.

Bea: Oh.

Jon: But I was terrible.

Bea: Oh.

Jon: But I played trumpet until I was 14 and then you had to go to the marching band, and I got my ass kicked enough just for being short. I didn't need to wear spats. You know what I'm saying?

Bea: No, I don't know those marching bands. Don't they have trombones?

Jon: Yeah.

Bea: And the big drum?

Jon: Yeah. You've seen the super bowl halftime show.

Bea: And baton twirling?

Jon: Yes, lots of twirling. It's not the place you want to be if you got acne and you're 4'7. Believe me. Uh, but you can catch Bea Arthur on Broadway. Thanks so much for coming!

Bea: Thank you.