Bea Arthur photos from the 1940s surfaced recently, suggesting that she served in the Marine Corps during World War II.
Arthur, who is most famous for her role as Dorothy on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, signed up for the Corps in 1943 when she was 21, according to the website The Smoking Gun.
The Smoking Gun posted photos of what appear to be Arthur, who was born Bernice Frankel, that are decades old.
A letter dated February 1943 had her Marine personnel file and she gave a short description of her prior employment.
She was “willing to get in now and do whatever is desired of me until such time as ground schools are organized,” according to the website, adding, “As far as hobbies are concerned, I’ve dabbled in music and dramatics.”
She first started out as a typist at the Washington D.C. Marine headquarters and later on, became a truck driver. She later moved to the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, North Carolina and went to other locations.
Arhur, who died in 2009, never spoke about her tenure with the Marines. At one time in a recent interview, she even denied that she ever served in the Corps.
