Why Mrs. Garrett Was Picked To Lead The Diff'rent Strokes Spin-Off The Facts Of Life

"The Facts of Life" ended up being a success for NBC at a time when it didn't have many of those. But before it could premiere, it had to get a cast together, and that required spinning off an actor from another successful sitcom; that actor was Charlotte Rae who played Mrs. Edna Garrett, the Drummonds' housekeeper, on "Diff'rent Strokes." Mrs. Garrett was picked to lead the spinoff because she was enough of a draw that she would attract eyeballs to "The Facts of Life," but not enough of a loss that "Diff'rent Strokes" would suffer for it.

Charlotte Rae talked to Entertainment Weekly for an oral history of "The Facts of Life," and she explained that, after Fred Silverman took over CBS and ABC as president, and then took over NBC, he was planning to make it the best network on TV. "When I was on 'Diff'rent Strokes,' he remembered me from 'Car 54, Where Are You?' – I had the part of Sylvia Schnauser in that, playing the wife of Al Lewis, who went on to [play Grandpa on] 'The Munsters' – and he knew I could deliver, so he decided he wanted to spin me off."

For Silverman, the choice of Rae was simple: "'Diff'rent Strokes' was one of the few successful comedies we had on NBC, so I decided that would be the ideal choice as a vehicle for a spinoff," he said. "I thought there was enough there that we could weather her loss, and then she could still make guest appearances. So we effected a spinoff very, very quickly — I think we went on the air within a year of the time that 'Diff'rent Strokes' premiered — and it was an instant success, which in those days was quite rare for NBC."

Read on to find out what "The Facts of Life" was about and what its ratings were really like.

While Mrs. Garrett was a housekeeper in "Diff'rent Strokes," when she moved to "The Facts of Life" she became a housemother at a dorm at a fictional all-girls boarding school in Peekskill, New York. The first season included quite a few of the girls in the dorm, but subsequent seasons focused on four key characters — Jo Polniaczek (Nancy McKeon), Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel), Natalie Green (Mindy Cohn), and Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey (Kim Fields) — and their interactions with Mrs. Garrett. 

While it was a comedy, it also tackled quite a few serious topics, including racism, drug abuse, peer pressure, rape, and alcoholism, as the girls learned and grew. Throughout the show, the premise changed to fit the stage of life the girls were at. First it switched from a high school show at the Eastland School to, after their graduation, a show set at Mrs. Garrett's bakery, Edna's Edibles, which the girls helped out at. Later, when Edna's Edibles burnt down, the girls ran a gift shop, which takes them to the end of "The Facts of Life"'s nine-season run. By now, "The Facts of Life "cast has all moved on to different things.

While former CEO of NBC, Fred Silverman, claimed "The Facts of Life" was an instant success, it seems that people wanted to watch no matter what the girls were doing ... from the second season on. The ratings were not great in the first season, prompting the network to reduce the number of cast members the series dealt with. That seemed to do the trick because the series ratings surged in Season 2 and by the third season, "The Facts of Life" was ranked 24th. It was also first for an NBC comedy and second overall for the network. Subsequently, the ratings stayed high throughout its nine-season run.

While Mrs. Garrett was the original draw for the show, the cast of characters quickly became popular enough that when she decreased her role in Season 6 and 7, "The Facts of Life" easily withstood it. Charlotte Rae died in 2018 at 92, but her character married and moved to Africa in Season 8. Rae herself decided she wanted to pursue other opportunities. She told the Orlando Sentinel, "I just felt I had done all that I could do with Mrs. Garrett ... For my own stimulation as an actress, it was important for me to move on." She was replaced in the final two seasons by Cloris Leachman, another "The Facts of Life" member who passed away, as Beverly Ann Stickle, Mrs. Garrett's sister.