Dorothy was depicted as being in her early 50s, Rose in her early to mid-50s, Blanche in her early to mid-50s, and Sophia in her late 70s when The Golden Girls first aired in September 1985. In other words, the four women were written as adult women around their 50s, with Sophia clearly the eldest among them. These ages align with on-screen references and the show's timeline, which runs from 1985 through the late 1980s into the early 1990s, culminating in the characters aging modestly over the course of the series.