A life member of the
Actors Studio, McClanahan made her professional stage début at Pennsylvania's
Erie Playhouse in 1957, in the play
Inherit the Wind. but did not make her
Broadway début until 1969, when she portrayed Sally Weber in the original production of
John Sebastian and
Murray Schisgal's play with music,
Jimmy Shine, with
Dustin Hoffman in the title role. McClanahan first worked with actress
Bea Arthur on the sitcom
Maude (1972–78). Arthur played
Maude Findlay, and McClanahan played Maude's best friend
Vivian Harmon, who was introduced as Vivian Cavender and eventually married Maude's next-door neighbor Dr.
Arthur Harmon (played by
Conrad Bain) after divorcing her first husband. After
Maude, McClanahan starred in
Apple Pie, a series created for her by
Norman Lear, but which aired only two episodes before it was canceled. In an interview, McClanahan said she also did another of the pilot episodes
The Baxters for Lear, but told him she did not want to do the series itself. It is unknown if her appearance was in the actual pilot or an unaired pilot, presumably the latter given she is not credited and the show is not attributed to her anywhere. It is also possible she never actually filmed the episode but was just considering it. Many years later, a script binder entitled
The Baxters was discovered to be a part of her collection. On the first two seasons of ''
Mama's Family (1983–84), McClanahan portrayed Aunt Fran Crowley'', an uptight spinster sister to Mama Thelma Harper (
Vicki Lawrence). Fran was a journalist for the local paper. Also in the cast was McClanahan's future
Golden Girls costar
Betty White. McClanahan and White appeared before the show was canceled by NBC after two seasons and then retooled for
first run syndication. On
The Golden Girls (1985–92) and its short-lived spin-off
The Golden Palace (1992–93), McClanahan portrayed man-crazed
Southern belle Blanche Devereaux, owner of the house she lived in and rented out to her three roommates and best friends:
Dorothy Zbornak (Arthur),
Rose Nylund (White), and Dorothy's mother,
Sophia Petrillo (
Estelle Getty). McClanahan received four
Emmy Award nominations for
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show, winning the award in 1987. She appeared as a leader of
Al-Anon in a 1970s informational film called
Slight Drinking Problem, in which
Patty Duke played the enabling and eventually self-empowered wife of an alcoholic. In feature films, she appeared in
The Rotten Apple (1961) and
Walk the Angry Beach (1968). She appeared in the
Walter Matthau-
Jack Lemmon comedy
Out to Sea (1997). On television, she appeared as
Matilda Joslyn Gage, mother-in-law of
L. Frank Baum in the made-for-television movie
The Dreamer of Oz (1990). She also made guest appearances on game shows including
The $10,000 Pyramid,
Hollywood Squares, and
Tattletales. She made guest appearances on
Murder, She Wrote,
Charles in Charge and
Newhart. In the early 1990s, McClanahan appeared as Margaret Becker in a trilogy of made-for-television films:
Children of the Bride,
Baby of the Bride, and
Mother of the Bride. She voice-acted in cartoons, voicing Scarlett the horse in the 1997 Fox Christmas special ''
Annabelle's Wish''. She played the role of Steve's grandmother in the
Blue's Clues video ''Blue's Big Treasure Hunt
(1999). On Spider-Man: The Animated Series'', she appeared in the 1994 episode "Doctor Octopus: Armed And Dangerous" as Anastasia Hardy. She played a biology teacher in 1997's
Starship Troopers. She voiced the role of Bunny in a 2007 episode of
King of the Hill, "Hair Today, Gone Today." In 2009, she appeared in an episode of
Law & Order as a woman who had an affair with
John F. Kennedy. On Broadway, McClanahan appeared in the all-woman cast of
The Women in 2001–2002, alongside Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Coolidge, among others. She replaced
Tammy Grimes as "The Visitor from New York" (Hannah Warren) in the
Neil Simon comedy
California Suite from April 4, 1977, until the show closed on July 2 of that same year. In 2003, she appeared alongside
Mark Hamill in the
two-hander Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks at the
Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, Florida. She chose not to continue with the production and was replaced by
Polly Bergen for the
Broadway performances. The same year, she appeared in the musical romantic comedy film
The Fighting Temptations as Nancy Stringer, which costarred
Cuba Gooding, Jr.,
Beyoncé Knowles,
Mike Epps, and
Steve Harvey. On Broadway, she replaced
Carole Shelley as
Madame Morrible in the musical
Wicked on May 31, 2005. She played the role for eight months until January 8, 2006. She was replaced by
Carol Kane on January 10, 2006. Her autobiography,
My First Five Husbands ... and the Ones Who Got Away, was released in 2007. McClanahan's final acting role was as Peggy Ingram in the cable series
Sordid Lives on the
Logo network, which premiered July 23, 2008. ==Activism==