Estelle Getty dies at 84. R.I.P. Sophia Petrillo from "The Golden Girls." Picture it... Sicily ...no more.

Diminutive actress Estelle Getty, who found fame late in life with her portrayal of a sharp-tongued Sicilian mother on "The Golden Girls," died Tuesday.

The 84-year-old passed away at her Los Angeles home following a long battle with Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease.

Getty, who stood under 5 feet tall, won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Sophia Petrillo, a meddling mom spending her twilight years with her middle-aged daughter and two roommates on "The Golden Girls."

Nearly 45 minutes of makeup were needed to transform Getty - who was actually younger than her screen daughter, Bea Arthur - into the feisty octogenarian, whose wisecracks and Sicilian memories often stole the scene.

"Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the greatest comic duos ever, and I will miss her," Arthur said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Born on the lower East Side in 1923, Getty briefly worked in local theater but left the limelight to raise her two sons with her husband, Arthur Gettleman, in Queens.

She returned to the stage later in life and, in 1982, landed the role of Harvey Fierstein's mother in "Torch Song Trilogy" on Broadway.

Based on accolades from that role, Getty decided to try her luck in Hollywood and was plucked from relative obscurity for "The Golden Girls," alongside sitcom stalwarts Arthur, Betty White and Rue McClanahan.

"Estelle always wanted to be an actress, and she achieved that goal beyond her dreams," McClanahan said. "Don't feel sad about her passing. She will always be with us in her crowning achievement, Sophia."

Getty's Sophia shuffled around the screen, with her purse tucked under one arm and a smart-aleck comment at the ready. Viewers knew the only thing keeping her in line was the threat her daughter would ship her back to Shady Pines nursing home.

The series' subject matter - the lives and loves of older women in Florida - was a departure for prime-time television, but the show was an instant hit and ran from 1985 to 1992.

Getty went on to play mothers to Sylvester Stallone, Cher and Barry Manilow in "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot," "Mask" and the TV movie "Copacabana."

"She was loved throughout the world in six continents, and if they loved sitcoms in Antarctica she would have been loved on seven continents," her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica, Calif., said Tuesday.

[NY Daily News]