When Susan Harris signed on as the showrunner of The Golden Girls, the older age of the characters was the basis of the series' appeal. Harris discussed the show's beginnings with Vulture.

“It’s funny, when [executive producer] Paul [Junger Witt] said, 'They’re thinking about doing a show with older women,' it excited me,” said Harris. “I wasn’t writing at the time, and wasn’t intending to again, but the word ‘older’ got me.”

However, Hollywood was more reluctant to portray women of a certain age. An older generation rarely appears as the forefront of a television series. Even more rare is to see the personal lives of a group of older women, as the characters of The Golden Girls.

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“I was figuring women who were 60 to 70,” said Harris. “But when we went to the network, we found out that 'older' to them meant women in their 40s, which was astonishing to me because I think that’s what I was at the time. We managed to compromise with the women hovering around late 50s, early 60s. But ultimately, their ages were never expressly mentioned.”

This code of silence extended to the cast, who also refused to discuss age during interviews.

“We all made a pact,” said star Betty White during an interview with the Gannett News Service. “We always say we’re around 60 - although some of us are closer than others.”