"Glittering" Goldie O'Gilt is a female duck who originated in the comics as Scrooge McDuck's old flame from his Gold Rush days.
Contents
Background
Goldie serving Scrooge his drugged coffee.
A young Scrooge first met Goldie at the Blackjack Ballroom, where Goldie worked as a singer. After Scrooge showed his recent gold poke to silence a sneering bartender, the covetous Goldie suddenly showed great interest in Scrooge and invited him for coffee. In an attempt to rob Scrooge of his gold, Goldie drugged his coffee, and Scrooge woke up hours later in a snowdrift six miles from town. After he realized Goldie robbed him of his hard-earned gold, a furious Scrooge returned to the ballroom, and forced Goldie to repay the debt by signing an I.O.U. and helping him work at his claim at White Agony Creek, to teach her a lesson about earning money square, rather than by robbing hardworking miners and stacking cards.[1]
History
Scrooge and Goldie in The Miner's Granddaughter.
Originally created by Carl Barks as a character in the comic Back to the Klondike, Goldie was shown to be a music hall singer in Dawson. Carl Barks drew inspiration for Glittering Goldie's character from Kathleen Rockwell (a.k.a. "Klondike Kate"). Barks only used the character once, but Goldie and her relationship with Scrooge were later picked up and expanded upon by other creators. One of these was master Disney artist Romano Scarpa, who wrote and drew Goldie's second comic appearance, The Miner's Granddaughter (Uncle Scrooge #423), where Goldie leaves her granddaughter Dickie Duck in Scrooge's care and meets Brigitta MacBridge for the first time.
Don Rosa also used her in several stories, including his The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck series and his comic Last Sled to Dawson in Uncle Scrooge Adventures #5.
Appearances
DuckTales
Present-day Goldie in "Ducky Mountain High".
Goldie made her animated debut in the DuckTales episode "Back to the Klondike". This episode is an adaptation of the Carl Barks comic of the same name. In this story, after she swindles Scrooge of his gold nugget, he threatens to call the authorities if she doesn't pay him back. Rather than getting into trouble, she reluctantly agrees to work to pay back the nugget. While working together the two of them fall in love.
She later appeared in the series' episodes "Scroogerello", "Till Nephews Do Us Part" (where she emerges from the wedding cake to punish Scrooge for trying to marry another woman), and "Ducky Mountain High". In "Scrooge's Pet", Scrooge installs a new lock for his vault and is seen putting the note with the combination in a locket and placing the locket on a statuette of Goldie. She could also be seen on a portrait in Scrooge's home in the episode "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. McDuck".
DuckTales (2017)
Goldie O'Gilt in DuckTales reboot.
Goldie appears in the 2017 reboot series as an anti-heroine, voiced by Allison Janney. She first appears in the episode "The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains!". She is depicted as appearing younger than Scrooge in this version because she found the Fountain of Youth in Ronguay. According to the creators, Goldie is the "Catwoman" to Scrooge's "Batman"; she rivals Scrooge in almost everything, including in greed, a fact that Scrooge hates and loves about her.[2] She also has no Southern drawl in this version.
As in the comics, Scrooge and Goldie met during the Gold Rush in the Yukon. However, instead of forcing her into working his claim, the two instead searched for the legendary Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains hidden within the caves near White Agony Creek. When facing the Mammoth that lurked there (a live one instead of the frozen corpse in the comics), they became trapped in a glacier for five years and their map to the Lagoon was torn in two by the beast. During the years staring at each other's faces, they fell in love. When Goldie thawed out, Scrooge was left behind and they became rivals in the years since, with a second search for the Golden Lagoon being their first encounter in recent years.
In the episode "The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck!", Scrooge tells Louie how he met up with Goldie at a town called Gumpton when Scrooge intended to prospect for gold and Goldie had followed him to steal any gold he prospected. Together they stopped John Rockerduck from stealing the town's gold which would have led to the town's bankruptcy, also setting off a gold rush. This gives Louie the idea to learn how to do business through Goldie.
In "Happy Birthday, Doofus Drake!" she and Louie attend Doofus Drake birthday party, posing as aunt and nephew with intentions of stealing the valuable gift bags.
During the night Doofus sicks a killer robot onto Louie which Goldie ends up stepping in front of B.O.Y.D. to get him to stop. To her and Louie's surprise, B.O.Y.D. shuts down and Doofus praises Louie and Goldie for passing the test. The whole ordeal was a test devised by Doofus to test their bonds of parenthood, just so Doofus could claim Goldie as his new "Goldiemama". Doofus relinquishes the gift bags to Louie and catapults him out.
Doofus encases Goldie in a glass prison and forces her to tell him stories. But Louie eventually rescues her.
At the end of the episode, Goldie adds the photo of Louie to her wallet next to Scrooge's with a wistful sigh before walking off into the distance, with the gift bags stolen from Doofus' party slung over her shoulder.
In "The Forbidden Fountain of the Foreverglades!", she eventually reconciles with Scrooge McDuck.
Printed media
Comics
Scrooge and Goldie meet again in Back to the Klondike (first published in 1953).
In the Uncle Scrooge comics, Goldie first appeared in Back to the Klondike. Scrooge and Goldie meet again some fifty years later and it is revealed that Goldie is now dirt poor and living alone at Scrooge's former claim in the Yukon. Scrooge travels there to collect her old debt to him (which, at compound interest for fifty years, now amounts to a billion dollars) and turns it into a bet for who can dig more gold. Goldie digs into an area where Scrooge's old gold stash was, so she wins. Scrooge claims to have lost because he forgot the stash due to recent memory problems, but Donald, who knows Uncle Scrooge had just taken his memory medication, deduces that Scrooge lost on purpose.
In her appearances in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, it is (heavily) implied that Scrooge and Goldie fell in love with each other, but never revealed their feelings of affection to one another and eventually drifted apart as Scrooge traveled across the world and acquired his fortune while Goldie remained in Dawson. In Last Sled to Dawson, Goldie appears again, this time owning a hotel in Dawson. Goldie plays a sizeable role as a side-character in a lot of Scrooge's flashbacks related to the Yukon, and she makes a surprise visit during Scrooge's "anniversary" of arriving in Duckburg. Scrooge frequently dreams of past chapters of his adventurous times, with at least one of them involving Goldie. However, according to himself, he always "gets knocked out" before finishing the dream about her in particular.
Gallery
References
- ā Back to the Klondike
- ā "First look at Allison Janney's 'DuckTales' debut as Goldie O'Gilt". LA Times (June 15, 2017).
