‘Maude’ Returns to Flex Her Feminist Muscles

Lucille Ball. Barbara Walters. Mary Tyler Moore. TV pioneers all.

And then there’s Maude.

A marathon dose of “Maude,” the precedent-setting series starring Beatrice Arthur that was spun off from Norman Lear’s hugely successful ‘70s sitcom “All in the Family,” begins on TV Land tonight, running nightly from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. through Friday before assuming a regular 10:30 nightly berth on the cable network’s schedule Aug. 9.

Ultra-liberal Maude Findlay was TV’s first true sitcom feminist: intelligent, assertive and politically astute, one whose everyday concerns were of a more worldly and weighty nature than housekeeping, boyfriends, her job or the perfect marriage. And because she was her own mix of contradictions--she was given to stereotypical “female” foibles now and then and the validity of her liberal bent was often called into question by the fact that she was well-heeled and always employed a servant--Maude was a three-dimensional character, gender aside.

Arthur was a Tony-winning stage actress little known to TV audiences before making her debut as Edith Bunker’s cousin Maude, bigoted Archie Bunker’s nemesis, on a pair of “All in the Family” episodes in 1971. But her unique, bigger-than-life personality, perfectly timed acidic delivery, withering stares and sheer force of presence made an instant impression on viewers and network executives.

“It was so funny,” she recalls today. “Here I was, decidedly middle-aged, and the head of CBS called Norman and said, ‘Who is that girl? Get her her own show!’ ”

By the next season, the topical spin-off series Lear had created for Arthur had secured a firm foothold in the top 10 and the actress had become inextricably identified with the tough-minded, outspoken woman who lived in suburban Tuckahoe, N.Y., with her fourth husband, Walter (Bill Macy), proprietor of an appliance store, her divorced daughter (Adrienne Barbeau) and her grandson Phillip (Brian Morrison, later Kraig Metzinger).

Rue McClanahan, who re-teamed with Arthur in the 1980s hit sitcom “The Golden Girls,” played Maude’s best friend Vivian, who married next-door neighbor Arthur (Conrad Bain) in the series’ second season. And series regular Esther Rolle’s popularity as the Findlays’ unflappable maid, Florida, was such that she in turn was given her own Lear spin-off series, “Good Times.”

Playing Maude was one long field day for Arthur, who won an Emmy Award for her performance in 1977. Looking back, she says, “I loved working on that show. We had a great time. It was just joyous. There were no egos involved; it was a great cast, with wonderful writers and a wonderful director.” She remained in the role until 1978, when she decided not to continue with “Maude.” CBS soon decided to cancel the show.

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“I’m not saying anybody’s indispensable,” Arthur says, reflecting on her success in the role. “Someone else could have [played the part] and taken it in an entirely different direction. But look, I’m 5 feet, 9 inches in my stocking feet and have a very deep voice. You can’t change that.” After a beat, she wryly adds that in real life, she often said, “God’ll get you for that,” which became Maude’s signature line. “There’s a lot of me in Maude.”

There was a lot of someone else in Maude too: Lear’s then-wife, the late magazine publisher Frances Lear, who provided the inspiration for the character. “Frances came up with a lot of ideas for the show. She was a militant. I only came up with one idea: I looked in the mirror one day and got the idea for the face-lift episodes,” Arthur recalls about the famous two-parter in which Maude decides to go under the knife.

Besides broaching the matter of cosmetic surgery, the show broke ground on a number of then off-limits topics, including divorce, abortion, life-threatening illness, depression, alcoholism and death, dealing with them in a serious manner but always with a humorous edge.

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Among Arthur’s favorite episodes is an installment titled “Vivian’s First Funeral,” which TV Land will telecast Friday at 10 p.m. “I lent a brooch to Vivian, who had lent it to someone else, who died. She was to be buried wearing the brooch, and I had to [surreptitiously] retrieve it from the corpse before they closed the casket. When I walked into the funeral home to retrieve the brooch, the organist played ‘The Girl From Ipanema.’ It was hilarious. We were way ahead of our time. Norman was breaking every taboo in the business.”

It made something of a memorable--if peculiar--fashion statement as well, with the floor-length vest coats and long scarves that became Maude’s trademark. “You know, I just happened to be wearing that outfit the day I arrived to start work, and they said, ‘That’s an interesting look.’ And they ended up making more of the same type of outfits. As a matter of fact, when TV Land announced to the press that they had scheduled the series, the executive came out wearing one.”

Reflecting on the show and its influence on the development of television, Arthur says, “Did ‘Maude’ change the roles for women on TV? It certainly did. Absolutely. This was before ‘Roseanne.’ It was at the height of the feminist movement. It even affected shows like ‘Married . . . With Children.’ Without a doubt, it made women more powerful.”

* “Maude” marathon will be shown from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. tonight through Friday on TV Land. It moves to 10:30 p.m. weeknights beginning Aug. 9.