Rue McClanahan, shown June 8, 2008, arriving at the TV Land Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., has died of a stroke. (Matt Sayles/Associated Press)Rue McClanahan, best known as the saucy and sassy Southern belle Blanche Devereaux on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, has died at age 76.

The Oklahoma-born, Emmy award-winning actress died of a brain hemorrhage early Thursday morning in a New York hospital, according to her manager, Barbara Lawrence.

McClanahan, who battled breast cancer in the late 1990s, underwent heart bypass surgery in November 2009. She suffered a stroke about a week after her surgery and had struggled to regain the ability to walk and talk.

However, as late as April, she was seen attending shows on Broadway to support her friends and colleagues at opening night performances.

With McClanahan's death, Betty White is now the last surviving Golden Girl. Bea Arthur died in 2009 and Estelle Getty died in 2008. On the show, the four actresses portrayed a group of aging, eccentric and feisty friends sharing a house together in Miami.

"Rue was a close and dear friend," White, who has seen a recent career resurgence with a flurry of acclaimed film and television appearances, said in a statement on Thursday. "I treasured our relationship. It hurts more than I even thought it would, if that's even possible."

Stage veteran

Though best known for her turn on the still-popular pop culture favourite Golden Girls, McClanahan's career began on the stage in regional theatre and off-Broadway.

In her early years, she portrayed Blanche DuBois in a Pasadena Playhouse production of A Streetcar Named Desire and won a prestigious Obie Award for her 1970 performance in Oliver Hailey's drama Who's Happy Now.

She also appeared on Broadway, including opposite Dustin Hoffman in the musical Jimmy Shine in 1968, in a revival of The Women in 2001 and in an extended run of the hit musical Wicked in 2005.

McClanahan was a TV veteran whose career on the small screen began in the 1950s but exploded in the early 1970s. She landed a guest gig on All in the Family in 1971. When producer Norman Lear decided to create a spin-off — Maude, starring Bea Arthur — McClanahan was cast as the lead character's sweet but absent-minded best friend and neighbour, Vivian Harmon.

She also had a recurring role on the TV comedy Mama's Family and appeared on shows such Fantasy Island, Newhart, Trapper John, M.D. and The Love Boat.

Golden role

Each of the Golden Girls actresses won accolades for the hit sitcom. Clockwise from left, are Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Estelle Getty. (Associated Press) She and Arthur would meet up again in 1985 for The Golden Girls.

Though McClanahan had originally been cast as the dim and demure Rose Nylund, she and co-star Betty White ended up switching characters in order to distance themselves from the roles for which they had been known in the past (White had starred as a man-hungry TV host on The Mary Tyler Moore Show ).

Each of the Golden Girl stars earned accolades for their roles, with McClanahan earning an Emmy in 1987.

After the sitcom's cancellation in 1992, McClanahan, White and Getty participated in a short-lived spin-off called Golden Palace.

More recently, McClanahan split her time between roles on stage, TV and film. In 2007, the oft-married actress published a memoir entitled My First Five Husbands and the Ones Who Got Away.

Born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in Healdton, Okla., the actress studied theatre at the University of Tulsa and also in New York under acclaimed acting teacher Uta Hagen and director and critic Harold Clurman.

McClanahan is survived by her sixth husband, Morrow Wilson, and her son, Mark Bish, from her first marriage.