She had undergone treatment for breast cancer in 1997 and later lectured to cancer support groups on "aging gracefully." In 2009, she had heart bypass surgery.
But her most loved role came in 1985 when she co-starred with Arthur, Betty White and Estelle Getty in "The Golden Girls," a runaway hit that broke the sitcom mold by focusing on the foibles of four aging -- and frequently eccentric -- women living together in Miami.
"Golden Girls" aimed to show "that when people mature, they add layers," she told The New York Times in 1985. "They don't turn into other creatures. The truth is we all still have our child, our adolescent, and your young woman living in us."
Fellow "Golden Girl" Betty White called McClanahan a close and dear friend. "I treasured our relationship," said White, who was working on the set of her TV Land comedy "Hot in Cleveland" on Thursday. "It hurts more than I even thought it would, if that's even possible."
McClanahan snagged an Emmy for her work on the show in 1987. In an Associated Press interview that year, McClanahan said Blanche was unlike any other role she had ever played.
Her Blanche Devereaux, she said, "is in love with life and she loves men. I think she has an attitude toward women that's competitive. She is friends with Dorothy and Rose, but if she has enough provocation she becomes competitive with them. I think basically she's insecure. It's the other side of the Don Juan syndrome."
McClanahan continued working in television, on stage and in film, appearing in the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau vehicle "Out to Sea" and as the biology teacher in "Starship Troopers."
In 2008, McClanahan appeared in the Logo comedy "Sordid Lives: The Series," playing the slightly addled, elderly mother of an institutionalized drag queen.
McClanahan was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in Healdton, Oklahoma, to building contractor William McClanahan and his wife, Dreda Rheua-Nell, a beautician.
She graduated with honors from the University of Tulsa with a degree in German and theater arts.
She won an Obie -- the off-Broadway version of the Tony -- in 1970 for "Who's Happy Now," playing the "other woman" in a family drama written by Oliver Hailey. She reprised the role in a 1975 television version; in a review, The New York Times described her character as "an irrepressible belle given to frequent bouts of `wooziness' and occasional bursts of shrewdness."
She went from there to a regular role in the "All in the Family" spinoff "Maude," playing Vivian, the neighbor and best friend to Arthur in the starring role.
McClanahan was married six times: Tom Bish, with whom she had a son, Mark Bish; actor Norman Hartweg; Peter D'Maio; Gus Fisher; and Tom Keel. She married husband Morrow Wilson on Christmas Day in 1997.
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