Golden Girls writer tried bringing back the gay housekeeper from the pilot

It’s never too late for new behind-the-scenes drama to pour out from old shows, and one of the original Golden Girls writers is sharing his stories in a recently released tell-all.

Stan Zimmerman worked on the very first season of what has become a truly iconic TV show in the nearly 40 years since it premiered.

“I would see waves of it where young people would come up to me and they would know every line of the show,” he told People.

As part of his new book, The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore, Zimmerman has been recalling stories from his time on Golden Girls, Gilmore Girls, Roseanne, A Very Brady Sequel, and more, in addition to discussing what it was like coming up in Hollywood as a gay writer in the 80s.

He also took the opportunity to talk about the gay character that didn’t make it any further than the pilot of The Golden Girls — Coco the housekeeper (Charles Levin).

“As great as Coco was — and he was very funny, and I love that there was a gay character — it wasn’t really needed, and they were smart to let that go,” Zimmerman said, according to People. Coco was bounced after the first episode to make room for Estelle Getty to join the cast full time as Sophia.

“I wish they had dealt with it, or had him back for a special episode,” he added. “Maybe he fell in love, went somewhere. Maybe he opened a B&B in Key West. I don’t know. There’s so many possibilities.”

But despite expressing his interest in seeing a return of Coco, Zimmerman says he was told to “let it go,” suggesting nobody realized that what happened to Coco would become a question people were still asking decades later, as the show’s legacy carries on.

The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore is available as of February 13.