But those characters are only part of the picture in a career that spans nearly 50 years.

In 1954, Arthur gained attention for her stage appearance as Lucy Brown in "The Three Penny Opera." She went on to wow Broadway in "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Mame," which earned her a Tony Award in 1966.

This year, she returns to the scene of her early successes with her first one-woman show "... And Then There's Bea, With Her Friend Billy Goldenberg at the Piano." The 90-minute musical evening features songs and humorous stories from her career, giving audiences a live glimpse of the woman who has become a familiar fixture in their living rooms.

Arthur's multi-city tour with the show will include a stint at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Aug. 7-19, one of her rare visits to South Florida. (She did a show in Palm Beach back in 1961 and appeared in a Coconut Grove production about four years ago.)

twn caught up with the award-winning actress during a weeklong tour break to talk about her new show and her television highlights. She was back at home in the Los Angeles area having no problems finding ways to fill her down time -- "You do the laundry, get a manicure, you have your teeth cleaned, you play with your dogs. I'm even cooking dinner tonight for friends," Arthur says in that deep, instantly recognizable voice.

The making of a one-woman show

"Of course, we said, 'yes, certainly.' It wasn't until about 10 days before the event that we found out it was just us -- not a whole bunch of people, each one doing two choruses with a key change," Arthur says, feigning horror.

"It was a very prestigious event in Palm Springs. It was a yearly thing, black tie. At first we thought, 'Well, god, one of us will have to get sick because we can't possibly do this.' We weren't prepared.

"But a friend of mine said, don't be silly, why don't you just go out and describe something amusing that happened to you and then simply say since we're not getting paid, we're going to do whatever we want, which is just to sing and have fun. We did that, and I think the thing lasted maybe 20 minutes, maybe not even that long. It was very successful and people enjoyed it."

The duo reunited for an annual hospital benefit put on by Angela Lansbury's brother in Big Bear, Calif., and added another 10 minutes of material. Before long, the show had expanded, they had more dates under their belts, and they had signed up producer Darryl Roth ("Proof'). After the tour ends in January, the show will either go to London or Broadway.

"It's been very, very rewarding," Arthur says -- and based on the early reviews, the critics agree.

"Billy and I just chose things that we enjoyed. I do two of the songs that he composed, but I do them because I love them, not because its expected of me -- he's just so brilliant. I do something from 'Gypsy,' because that's the one show that I think, 'Oh God, why have I never played that?' I think it's the ultimate musical. Of course, by the time it was offered to me though, I felt everyone in the world had already done it. I do something from 'Three Penny.'

"As a matter of fact, the difficulty was getting rid of songs," she adds. "It's almost like having to choose between your two children, you know, deleting certain songs that just weren't right for the evening. Specifically, I was doing a Bob Dylan song, "The Times They Are A-Changin',' which I fell in love with, and we had to drop it, because it didn't come at a right moment, and it was too heavy. Hopefully someday we'll find another way to put it in again. Somebody said it would have been the first time anybody heard the lyrics."

A hit career and friends of Dorothy

"When I graduated it was impossible to find jobs, so I tried my hand -- or my throat -- at singing in nightclubs, and it was not very successful," she says. "But then I started doing off-Broadway musical revues."

It was Arthur's appearances in the 1955 hit off-Broadway musical, "The Shoestring Revue", that landed her on Norman Lear's radar screen. The producer and actress developed a friendship that would eventually translate into guest spots on his sitcom "All In The Family," as Maude, Edith Bunker's liberal cousin.

From there, it was only a matter of time before she became a television staple. "Maude," the first spin-off series from "All In The Family," ran from 1972 to 1978. Arthur returned to series TV from 1985 to 1992 as Dorothy on "The Golden Girls." Both sitcoms sent her home with an Emmy Award for her work.

"I refused to watch any of the shows while we were doing them, because I was always afraid they might curb me in some way," Arthur admits. "That I might look and think, "Oh god, why did I do that when I should have done...' Now I look at them and think, 'Hey, we did pretty damn good work. Pretty wonderful.' I'm very, very proud of them."

Arthur has a particularly strong presence on Lifetime -- Television for Women (and Gay Men). Although she can only speculate about the reasons for her large gay fan base, it hasn't gone unnoticed. (Fellow "golden girl" Rue McClanahan recently had the boys lining up around the block in Chelsea for her regular appearances at gay hot spot "Blu".)

"I almost feel like Judy Garland sometimes," Arthur says. "I really don't know what it is. What I think it is, for the same reason possible that even young children enjoyed both shows, it's so anti-establishment. Plus, with both shows, we tackled subjects that were so taboo. Homosexuality -- that hadn't been even discussed on television until Norman Lear came along. I think it has to do with the material and the honesty maybe of the characters."

That no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is attitude that colored Arthur's shows and made both Maude and Dorothy such fan favorites isn't far removed from the actress's own personality.