I have just been watching the first season again and I noticed how much Rue's weight changed from the early episodes to the later episodes, in the first few episodes you can see her cheekbones in her face, this is no means disrespecting Rue at all its just a observation. And her hair changed a lot, season 7 was best with her longer hair and perm

In one of her Season 5 DVD commentaries, Rue says that she had lost a lot of weight by the 5th season however the make-up artist said it made her face look too haggered so Rue put on a bit more weight for Season 6.

thanks for your reply, Im gonna go and watch the dvds now with commentarys to see what else the girls had to say

Yeah, I noticed Rue was very thin in Season 1. I figured it was from eating Cheesecake and pasta on the show.

I know Rue wasnt very well at the start of GG, she said something about having had an operation, but i cant remember. maybe that had something to do with it? not sure. thanks for posting tho, i was just noticing her weight the other day and she was quite thin!

I did read somewhere that Rue had a respiratory infection before the show. She got it during Mama's Family so they killed her off. Afterwards, she started Golden Girls. I also read that when Golden Girls started, she could not voice Blanche like she wanted because of the infection.

Yeah I noticed how thin Rue was in the first season compared to the other seasons. She looked better in the later seasons when she put on a bit more weight in my opinion.