In 1992, a young actor named Don Cheadle appeared on the television sitcom The Golden Palace, a spin-off of The Golden Girls in which all the old ladies except for Bea Arthur took over an upscale hotel. (It was a bloodless coup.) Don Cheadle played Roland Wilson, the hotel’s manager.
In 2004, Don Cheadle earned raves and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Hotel Rwanda, a film based on the real-life heroics of hotelier Paul Rusesabagina, who helped save over a thousand refugees during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Don Cheadle played Paul Rusesabagina, the heroic hotelier.
In 2008, Don Cheadle starred in Hotel for Dogs, the feature-film adaptation of Lois Duncan’s book about two orphans who convert an abandoned house into a hotel for dogs. Don Cheadle played Bernie, a social worker-turned-concierge at the aforementioned hotel for dogs.
Subject line: proven.
There was a spinoff of the Golden Girls!? I’ve never heard if it. How did they explain Bea Arthur’s absence?
That’s sorta like the Michael Douglas trilogy of a man cheating on his wife/girlfriend and ending up with the mistress going psycho (Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and Disclosure)
Seriously!? A Golden Girls spin-off! I loved that show when I was little, and given my pre-teen obsession with bad sitcoms, I’m shocked that I’ve never heard of The Golden Palace…
1 and 3: It lasted one season, also featured Cheech Marin, and was terrible. Every scrap of Golden Girls magic was gone (and Bea Arthur reportedly made three guest appearances–did she get married off at the end of the regular Golden Girls run or something?)
@1: Bea Arthur was deleted for being a dick.
@5
now that’s what I call comic timing.
If becoming a concierge at a hotel for dogs is where the road ends for social workers, perhaps I should reconsider that MSW program…
the only ‘golden palace’ episodes worth watching are the ones where bea special-guested and the one where you see don cheadle’s weiner flopping around in a pair of loose-fitting boxer shorts. the rest are just awful.
I’ve been around a long time, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen the phrase “Golden Girls magic”.
If they ever revive “Hot l Baltimore”, Cheadle’s gotta be first in line.
Dude, those Golden Girls could be effing hilarious.
For my sassy-fag-substitute money, I’ll take Golden Girls over the Sex and the City bitches any day of the week for all time forever.
If “Sex and the City” is your benchmark, then you’re awfully easy. I guess it’s just one of those gay things I’ll never understand. Like the onion sling.
No, Golden Girls is my benchmark. Sex and the City is so dumb and cutesy and over-narrated it makes me want to die.
But Golden Girls….the visual joke of the mother-daughter relationship, built on the idea that Bea Arthur’s character entered the world through the vagina of Estelle Getty’s character, is alone enough to earn the show a Nobel Prize for Comedy.
And next Iron Man movie, it’ll be an even more accurate title, since he’s taking over for Ron Howard as Rhodey (War Machine).
Bea Arthur is a deal-breaker for me, sorry. Estelle Getty’s vagina isn’t exactly a hot draw, either.
And in Ocean’s Eleven, Don Cheadle plays a bomb-maker who helps rob a casino / hotel in Las Vegas.
Uh oh, don’t tell Wayne Koestenbaum.
I think Iron Man 2 will still be good even if some actors were replaced..