Last night, when I should’ve been falling asleep, I looked up Susan Harris. Here she is from a few years ago. She turns 79 in October. You may not know her by name but you know the shows she created.

Susan Harris created Golden Girls when she was in her mid-forties. It’s strange to me, especially in the Showrunner Age of Television, that Harris isn’t spoken of all the time.

She also created SOAP, which is arguably one of the most subversive shows on TV. It even brought the first openly gay series regular to television.

She also created BENSON, EMPTY NEST, and GOLDEN PALACE (the spinoff of Golden Girls no one remembers where the girl’s minus Dorothy open a hotel with Cheech and Don Cheadle).

Seems odd to me that GOLDEN GIRLS has become such a beloved part of the culture and we don’t treat Harris the way we treat male creators that do half as much.

I don’t know if the Emmys do lifetime achievement awards, but Susan Harris deserves one. She won an Emmy for GOLDEN GIRLS but that’s not enough.

Susan Harris turns 79 today.