On February 18, 1943, a 20-year-old woman named Bernice Frankel walked right into a Marine Corps recruiting office and tried to enlist in a branch that didn’t even have paperwork for women yet.
She was born Bernice Frankel, but she’d die Bea Arthur. And for the last 40 years of her life, she’d tell anyone who ever asked that none of it ever happened.
She was just shy of 21; she still needed her parents’ consent. She got it, and just two days later, she was Private Frankel, United States Marine Corps (USMC). The branch hadn’t created forms for women yet, so they had to process her on Navy paperwork.
The Women’s Reserve had a slogan: “Be a Marine, Free a Marine to Fight.” More than 20,000 women joined before the war ended. Bea Arthur was one of the very first. She trained at Hunter College in New York, the first Women’s Reserve school, then she worked as a typist at Marine headquarters in Washington, D.C. But she felt that she could do more; be of better use.
She handwrote a letter to the Marines arguing that her background made her more of an asset at the Motor Transport School at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. It worked, and the transfer was approved. Six weeks later, she moved again – this time to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, working as a driver and dispatcher.
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She drove trucks. She kept moving up the ranks from private to staff sergeant in right around two years. On September 26, 1945, Arthur was honorably discharged.
Her personnel file definitely had some colorful notes about her character. Evaluators described her as poised, with “meticulous good taste.” They also called her “over-aggressive” and “argumentative.” One wrote: “Officious — but probably a good worker if she has her own way.”
Dorothy Zbornak was famously blunt, argumentative and usually the smartest person in the room. So was Staff Sergeant Frankel – her higher-ups even put it in writing.
She also met her first husband during her time in the service: a fellow Marine named Robert Aurthur. She took his name, kept it after the divorce, slightly changed the spelling and used it on stage for the rest of her career.
After her time in the Marines, she went to drama school. The résumé that followed was extraordinary: a Tony, two Emmys, Maude, seven seasons as Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls. She was one of the most decorated performers of her generation.
The Interview, 2001
In 2001, the Television Academy Foundation sat her down for an on-camera interview. Someone mentioned that she’d served in World War II.
“Oh, no,” she said. “No.”
Nobody knows exactly why. Some historians think she may have been embarrassed. After all, her file shows she received one misconduct report in 1944. Others think she distanced herself from the military because of her later work as an LGBTQ+ rights advocate, at a time when gay service members were being discharged. Her son said she rarely mentioned it, only mentioning that she could drive any vehicle.
Marine Corps
She died on April 25, 2009. A year later, her military file became public record. It’s now part of the National Archives’ Persons of Exceptional Prominence (PEP) series, alongside heads of state and generals.
Staff Sergeant Bernice Frankel. Honorably discharged. Probably a good worker if she had her own way.
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