Early Life
Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922 to Philip and Rebecca Frankel (1902–1986) in New York City. In 1933 her family moved to Cambridge, Maryland, where her parents operated a women's clothing shop. She attended Linden Hall School for Girls, an all-girls' boarding school in Lititz, Pennsylvania, before enrolling in the now-defunct Blackstone College for Girls in Blackstone, Virginia, where she was active in drama productions.
Arthur joined the United States Marine Corps in 1943. She worked at such jobs as typist and truck driver, and was honorably discharged with the rank of staff sergeant in 1945. During her time in the Marines, she married another Marine, Robert Aurthur, and changed her last name. She later denied having served in the military.
Read more about this topic: Bea Arthur
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“...to many a mother’s heart has come the disappointment of a loss of power, a limitation of influence when early manhood takes the boy from the home, or when even before that time, in school, or where he touches the great world and begins to be bewildered with its controversies, trade and economics and politics make their imprint even while his lips are dewy with his mother’s kiss.”
—J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)
“Glorious bouquets and storms of applause ... are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys. But to move an audience in such a role, to hear in the applause that unmistakable note which breaks through good theatre manners and comes from the heart, is to feel that you have won through to life itself. Such pleasure does not vanish with the fall of the curtain, but becomes part of one’s own life.”
—Dame Alice Markova (b. 1910)