Bea Arthur Talks About When She Realized She Wanted to Be An Actress

Interviewer: Is there a defining moment when you realized, “I want to be an actress” Bea: It was after the war. It was-what exactly was your question? Interviewer: Was there a defining moment where you said, “You know, I want to be an actress” BEA: I think-no, I think the defining moment was simply “I do not want to run urines for a profession”. And I was very cute at the time. I was-of course, I was very tall, but I had enormous breasts and I went to dramatic school-again, my folks just really-I don’t know that they ever thought I would end up being important in the theatre, but they-they knew what I wanted and they, you know, they helped me along. I think the time that I realized that I was an actress and that I did have talent-I know that wasn’t your question, you asked me when I knew that I wanted-but I’m going to jump ahead anyway. Because the big thing for me was the production of Threepenny Opera, which was the original US production, which we did in ’54 – Oh my god, what a long time ago. When I was on stage and I started singing my-my song that I realized that I did have something and that I wasn’t kidding. I had something to-to offer. I felt-I’m sorry that’s not your question, but I wanted it anyway.