Bea Arthur, star of television’s "Maude" and "The Golden Girls," paved the way for women to be funny on television, Rosie O’Donnell told the crowd at a memorial service Monday in Broadway’s Majestic Theater, reports the Associated Press.

"She really taught me and every other woman my age how to be a feminist at a time when that was a dirty word," O’Donnell said at the service. "And without her, I think, there would not be as many funny women on television today."

Arthur died of cancer in April at the age of 86.

–Elizabeth Jensen