Golden Getty

“If I Knew Then What I Know Now . . . So What?”

That’s both the title of Estelle Getty’s new book as well as the actress’s philosophy of life. “People say that all the time: ‘If I knew then what I know now’--well, what? “ she asks. “What are you going to do about it? I am not a person who looks back, and I’m hardly a person who looks forward. The future is too scary, and the past is gone.”

Getty was startled when the publisher, Contemporary Books, approached her about writing a book, but decided to give it a try. “I’m a very opinionated person, I have theories and opinions and aphorisms, that kind of thing,” she says. “I like to write the kinds of things where people say ‘That’s impossible’--but in 20 years they’ll have to say ‘I guess you’re right.’ ”

Being opinionated is also Getty’s claim to fame on NBC’s hit comedy “The Golden Girls.” Along with her newfound notoriety as an author, Getty is best known from her role as tiny, white-haired, 80-some-year-old Sophia Petrillo, who shares a Florida home with her daughter Dorothy (Bea Arthur) and two other middle-aged women (Rue McClanahan and Betty White) on the show.

Getty, a veteran stage performer who won an Emmy this year for her portrayal of Sophia, says she has never been able to figure out the character’s popularity. “I think my being so small has something to do with it,” she muses. “There’s something about people identifying with little people, for various reasons.”

Getty adds that Sophia’s bluntness--attributable to a slight stroke--also charms audiences. “She says a lot of things most people can’t for various reasons,” she says.

Although Getty plays an 80-year-old, she is about the same age as the other Golden Girls--and refuses to state her age because “that would be telling everybody’s age, and that wouldn’t be right.” She will reveal, however, that she has been acting for more than 50 years and married for 41. Her husband runs a business in Florida and Getty lives in Los Angeles. “He hasn’t asked me to give up my career, so I haven’t asked him to give up his,” she says.