Estelle Getty, an actress famous especially for her Emmy Award-winning role on “The Golden Girls” as a harsh elderly woman whose social delicacy suddenly vanished after she suffered a stroke, died on July 22 at her residence in Los Angeles, according to her son, Carl Gettleman. Her son reported that she had advanced dementia.

The actress impersonating Sophia Petrillo in the U.S. sitcom aired on NBC from 1985 to 1992 would have turned 85 on Friday.

“The Golden Girls” won the Emmy Award for best comedy two times, portraying the lives of four older women who shared a home in Florida.

Estelle Getty was only 61 when she began to play Sophia’s character and in order to resemble a lady in her 80s, the actress wore a white wig, large glasses and old-fashioned outfits. She was a popular member of the show’s quartet, which also included Bea Arthur as her ruling and severe daughter. The cast list also comprised names as Betty White, who impersonated an absent-minded widow and Rue McClanahan in the role of a good-looking man-loving Southern woman who once claimed that one’s body was as sacred as a temple.

For Estelle Getty, Sophia was the character to draw her from anonymity directly intohe spotlight. In spite of the fact that playing Harvey Fierstein’s haughty Jewish mom, Mrs. Beckoff, in “Torch Song Trilogy” (1982) brought her in the midst of public attention, the reviews were not raving about the play which ran for three years on Broadway. Furthermore, she won the 1985 Helen Hayes Award for outstanding supporting performer in a touring version of the Fierstein show.

That was the moment that proved to be decisive for Ms. Getty. NBC noticed the actress and cast her in the comedy that would bring her the 1988 Emmy for best supporting actress in a comedy series, a prize for which she was nominated seven times, and a 1986 Golden Globe for best performance by an actress in a comedy or musical TV series.

Her “Golden Girl” role also brought Ms. Getty several proposals to interpret the characters of spirited or unconventional mothers onscreen. Although the parts differed regarding their quality, she played Cher’s mom (“Mask,” 1985) as well as Sylvester Stallone’s mother in 1992’s production “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.”

Estelle Getty said she was not bothered at all by the fact that she played older people. “I really don’t have an actor’s ego,” she informed the Chicago Tribune in 1986.

She returned to her Sophia Petrillo character in numerous television series, including a brief sequel, “The Golden Palace” in 1992. Moreover, she played the voice of Grandma Estelle Little in 1999’s “Stuart Little.”

The actress was born on July 25, 1923, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side to Polish-Jewish immigrants. In 1947, she married Arthur Gettleman, who worked in the retail glass industry. Her husband died four years ago and she is survived by their two sons, Barry Gettleman of Miami and Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica, California, a brother and a sister.

Estelle Getty published a memoir entitled “If I Knew Then What I Know Now -- So What?” (1988), assisted by Steve Delsohn.