Sally Struthers Says She Landed ‘Gilmore Girls’ Role Of Babette Dell In Part Due To Her “Diminutive” Size

Sally Struthers is looking back at how she landed the role of Babette Dell on Gilmore Girls.

In a new interview, the All in the Family alum recalled her manager calling her about the role in the series.

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“’They want you at Warner Brothers to read for this series that’s going on there called Gilmore Girls. And it’s a character that lives next door to the woman and daughter who are the Gilmore girls,’” Struthers said on the Let’s Talk About That! podcast, recalling what her manager told her. “‘And her name is Babette, and they’re looking for a diminutive actress to play it. They’re not seeing anyone over five feet tall. And then they’re gonna cast someone very tall to be your jazz musician husband.'”

Struthers said that when she went into the audition she “just talked and talked about being short and some of my experiences only being this high and all that as an adult.”

“And I mean, I was 20 minutes outside of the Warner Brothers lot, and I got a phone call from my manager saying, ‘You got it!’” she added.

Struthers said she enjoyed her time on Gilmore Girls and working with Liz Torres, who played Miss Patty.

“We got to work together again, but we’re awful together,” Struthers joked. “We [would] make each other laugh really hard, and so they kept splitting us up like teachers do in school. They kept saying, ‘Liz, you go over and sit on that side of the sound stage and Sally, you sit over here, and you can’t sit together…’ Because we were making too much noise.”

Struthers recurred throughout the Gilmore Girls’ seven-season run. She reprised her role of Babette on Netflix’s Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

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