She was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan on February 21, 1934 in Healdton, Oklahoma. Her mother Dreda was a beautician and her father William was a building contractor. After graduating from high school she attended the University Of Tulsa. Rue began her acting career at Pennsylvania's Erie Playhouse. In 1958 she got pregnant and married musician Tom Bish. He walked out on her a few weeks before their son Mark was born. Then in 1959 she married Norman Hartweg, an actor she had known since college. During their two year marriage she had an abortion and several affairs. She made her film debut in the 1961 drama The Grass Eater. Rue moved to New York City and would spend most of the 1960s working in the theater. While appearing in The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty she fell in love with actor Peter DeMaio. The couple were married in 1965 but she left him because he was too controlling. She costarred with Dustin Hoffman in the 1969 Broadway show Jimmy Shine. Producer Norman Lear gave her a recurring role in his 1972 sitcom Maude. The show ran for six seasons. On November 6, 1976 she married Gus Fisher, a realtor. They split up in 1979. Rue made guest appearances on numerous on television shows including The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, and Newhart.
With Bea Arthur on Maude
She also costarred in the first season of Mama's Family. Her fifth marriage, her high school sweetheart Tom Keel, only lasted a year. Their divorce got messy because he had not signed a prenup.
At the age of fifty-one she was cast in the sitcom The Golden Girls alongside Bea Arthur, Betty White, and Estelle Getty. Playing sex-crazed Blanche Devereux turned into a television icon and she won the Emmy award in 1987. Rue earned $100,000 an episode during the show's final season. After The Golden Girls ended she continued to play Blanche in The Golden Palace but it was cancelled after one season.
She published her autobiography and dedicated a lot of of her time to being an animal rights activist. In 1997 she married her sixth husband, actor Morrow Wilson. That same year she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a lumpectomy. Rue returned to Broadway in 2000 to star in The Women. Unfortunately she and her husband Morrow decided to separate. Her final acting role was in a 2009 episode of Meet The Browns. She had heart bypass surgery in December of 2009 and suffered a stroke soon after. On June 3, 2010 she died from a brain hemorrhage at the age of seventy-six. Rue was cremated and her ashes were scattered.
