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'We are overwhelmed with gratitude that Bea saw that LGBT youth deserve as much love and support as any other young person'
Bea Arthur
Golden Girl Bea Arthur leaves $300,000 to LGBT youth charity
The Ali Forney Center, America's largest organisation dedicated to homeless LGBT youth, has received a gift of $300,000 from the estate of actress Bea Arthur, Dorothy in The Golden Girls, who died in April.
The organisation offers food, emergency shelter and transitional housing in seven residential sites in New York City, and operates two drop-in centres providing food, clothing, medical and mental health treatment, HIV testing, treatment and prevention services, and vocational and educational assistance for as many as 1,000 young people annually. On September 14, they announced that they planned to buy a building to house 12 youths and name it in her honour.
Carl Siciliano, executive director of the Ali Forney Center, said: "We work with hundreds of young people who are rejected by their families because of who they are.
"We are overwhelmed with gratitude that Bea saw that LGBT youth deserve as much love and support as any other young person, and that she placed so much value in the work we do to protect them, and to help them rebuild their lives."
Bea Arthur (born Bernice Frankel in New York City) became internationally famous for her role as the acid-tongued Dorothy Zbornak, but much of her long career was spent on Broadway, winning a Tony for her performance as the second lead in the musical Mame (1966). She won an Emmy (she was nominated 11 times) for her work in the sitcom Maude, a spin-off based on her role in All in the Family, and then, in 1985, came The Golden Girls. In 2005, she began playing Larry David's mother in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
