I wasn’t going to put up another repost today, but I just realized that I never got around to reposting my review of the late actress, Charlotte Rae’s, book about her life. And since I’ve been binge watching The Facts of Life, I figure now is a good time to repost this review, dated December 15, 2015.
Having grown up in the 70s and 80s, I watched a lot of TV. One of my favorite shows was Diff’rent Strokes. I also loved The Facts of Life. Both shows starred Charlotte Rae as Mrs. Edna Garrett, a maternal, wise, loving woman who first served as a live in housekeeper, then became the cook/dietician/house mother at Eastland School for Girls.
What I didn’t know was that Charlotte Rae’s career encompassed so much more than just 80s era sitcoms. I learned much more about her life when I read her book, The Facts of My Life, which she co-wrote with her son, Larry Strauss.
Charlotte Rae Lubotsky was born the middle of three daughters to Russian Jewish parents. She grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Born in 1926, Charlotte Rae was around to see the Great Depression and watch her parents and everyone else around her struggle to make ends meet. Nevertheless, Rae and her sisters were musically talented and felt a pull toward show business. After studying at Northwestern University among several other future stars, Rae moved to New York City and became active in the theater.
Having married John Strauss, Rae bore two sons. Her older son, Andy, was severely autistic and spent most of his life institutionalized. After a lifetime of health struggles, Andy passed away in 1999. Her younger son, Larry, is a writer and teacher. Rae writes about what it was like to work in the theater and later, Hollywood. She and her husband battled alcoholism and later, Rae dealt with the fact that her husband preferred the company of males. They managed to stay friends after their divorce.
Rae writes quite a lot about her family of origin and her career. Her attitude is upbeat, even as she describes having to deal with sibling rivalry with her older sister, Beverly, who was an opera diva. Younger sister, Mimi, was a great pianist. Rae describes her voice as “bluesy”, which is kind of hard for me to imagine, having seen her be Mrs. Garrett for so many years. Apparently, she is quite an accomplished singer, besides a great actress.
Sister Beverly Ann became an opera singer, then married a wealthy doctor and became a socialite. Sadly, she succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer has since become a cause near and dear to Rae’s heart.
I never knew that Charlotte Rae struggled with alcoholism. Apparently, she’s been sober for about forty years. She praises Alcoholics Anonymous and her AA buddies for helping her stay ahead of her addiction to booze. I also didn’t know that Rae was Jewish. She shares some interesting anecdotes about what it was life to grow up Jewish in the United States.
Parts of this book were very witty. Other parts were kind of sad. Those who are looking for anecdotes about Diff’rent Strokes or The Facts of Life may come away somewhat disappointed; after all, this book is not just about those two shows, even if they did make her much more visible to the world. But what she does share is enlightening and heartwarming. We are reminded that Mrs. Garrett and Charlotte Rae are two different entities, as are the people who portrayed the characters with whom Rae starred.
I think this book will appeal most to people like me, who have enjoyed Charlotte Rae’s talents. As celebrity life stories go, it’s pretty interesting. I’d give it four stars.
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A few weeks ago, I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to buy a few box sets of favorite TV shows from the 70s and 80s. I bought The Bionic Woman, One Day at a Time, and The Facts of Life. I’ve actually only seen a few episodes of The Bionic Woman, since it aired when we lived in England, and I don’t remember it being aired in syndication much. I did used to watch One Day at a Time when I was a kid, but missed the earliest episodes because I was too young when the show started, and then it really jumped the shark. I was a BIG fan of The Facts of Life, which was a spinoff of Diff’rent Strokes.
Most every kid my age loved Diff’rent Strokes, but I guess the powers that be decided that Charlotte Rae should have her own show. So they had her get a job at Eastland School, Kimberly Drummond’s boarding school in Peekskill, New York. Boom… suddenly, we had a successful sitcom revolving around the lives of girls who went to boarding school and wore frumpy uniforms all the time. The Facts of Life started off with a large cast of beautiful young girls with flowing hair… except for Molly Ringwald, of course, and Kim Fields, who played Tootie Ramsey, the token Black cast member. After the first season, the size of the cast was slimmed down, as the girls progressed through puberty and gained weight.
I loved the first few seasons of The Facts of Life. I liked it less when the girls were moved out of the school to work at Edna’s Edibles. Also, as is so common on shows about school, the students didn’t graduate on time. It seemed like they were Eastland students forever. And then Charlotte Rae left the show, and they brought in Mackenzie Astin, George Clooney, and Cloris Leachman. The last couple of seasons were practically unwatchable! I didn’t like it when the plot moved away from the school, though, because the school was so central to the show. Also, I think they made boarding school look like a lot more fun than it probably is in reality.
I kind of find the theme song annoying, catchy as it is. Alan Thicke and his ex wife, Gloria Loring, helped compose it, and Loring belts it out in an over-the-top, obnoxious way… not unlike the characters’ personalities.
But there were a few really good years on that show, I’m in the thick of them right now. The writers took on a number of ambitious topics that were very important in the 1980s. Imagine my surprise this week, as I waded through the third and fourth seasons, realizing that subject matter that was timely in 1981 and 1982, is still timely and important today. In seasons 3 and 4, The Facts of Life tackled:
suicide
abortion
book banning
underage drinking
rape and sexual assault
teen pregnancy
breast cancer
mental retardation (this is what it was called on the show, rather than one of the more politically correct terms of today)
physical handicaps (again, how it was described on the show)
racism
fanaticism
crash dieting
religion
sexism
cross cultural issues
bullying
adoption
marital affairs
teenage prostitution
The list goes on, as I have only just started season 4, and there were a total of 9 seasons before NBC finally pulled the plug. But as I was wasting the late afternoon hours yesterday, watching the episode about book banning, it occurred to me that, in some ways, we haven’t really gotten anywhere in the last 40 years. The plot was about how a bunch of parents got upset that their daughters were able to check out books like Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, which they felt didn’t promote the right message or values. I was suddenly reminded of the recent controversy surrounding the book, Maus, by Art Spiegelman, which has had the effect of causing a bunch of people to buy and read the book in protest. I read Maus a few weeks ago, passed it to Bill, who finished it last weekend, and just today, he took it to work to lend to one of his co-workers.
If I recall correctly, I believe I decided to read Slaughterhouse Five when I was in high school, in part because it was mentioned on The Facts of Life as a banned book. I knew I liked Vonnegut’s writing, having read his short story, “Harrison Bergeron”, in the 9th grade. Sure enough, I enjoyed Slaughterhouse Five very much. Then later, I decided to read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, because it was a banned book. My love for reading continues today, although it’s not as easy as it used to be, as my eyes aren’t as young as they once were.
Ditto, the episode about abortion, which was about how the character Natalie, played by Mindy Cohn, made up a story about a girl at Eastland who had an abortion. The story had the whole school buzzing, and soon parents were calling, demanding to know who the girl was. Natalie was threatened with expulsion, until a girl told her that she’d had an abortion. Natalie could have told the headmaster the girl’s name and saved her job as editor of the school paper. But she came clean and admitted she’d made up the story, protecting the girl’s identity. As the credits were about to roll, the headmaster said that he was relieved to “know” that abortion wasn’t an issue at Eastland. Of course, the audience knows better. Forty years later, we’re still fighting over abortion.
I even learned something about capital punishment in France, watching The Facts of Life. The character Geri, played by Geri Jewell, is the cousin of snobby rich girl, Blair Warner. She has cerebral palsy, and works as a comedienne. In one episode, she develops a romance with the school’s French teacher. He asks out Geri, and she says something along the lines of, “I don’t want to get my head chopped off.” She was referencing France’s famous guillotine, which was used to execute people. The French teacher says that France did away with the guillotine in favor of hanging.
I was surprised to hear that the guillotine hadn’t been abolished many years ago, so I decided to look up the device’s history, as well as the general history of capital punishment in France. I was very surprised to learn that the last time France used the guillotine was in 1977! I was five years old! The man who was executed was 27 years old and was originally from Tunisia. He was also missing part of a leg, due to a tractor accident in 1971. He was put to death in Marseilles in September 1977 for torturing and murdering a young woman, and forcing a couple of other women into prostitution. Oddly enough, I actually visited Tunisia in 1977. We lived in England at the time, and went to Tunisia to celebrate New Year’s.
In 1981, then French president Francois Mitterrand declared capital punishment illegal in France. It was formally abolished on February 19, 2007. But, up until 1981, the French constitution actually dictated that anyone who was executed in France would be killed by decapitation, or barring that, firing squad. Never having studied French myself, I don’t know much about its history, other than what I’ve seen personally, heard about in the news, or heard from friends. I have had the opportunity and great fortune to visit France many times, which is something I never thought would have happened in 1982. It seems like France was especially popular in America in the 80s! Back in those days, people didn’t travel as much as they do now… or did before COVID-19, anyway.
Even Russia and Ukraine were subjects of The Facts of Life back in the 80s. During the third season, Natalie’s Russian Jewish grandmother, Mona, came to visit her at school. Mona said she was from Ukraine, even though the name of the episode was “From Russia with Love”. In 1982, Ukraine was still part of the former Soviet Union, which, in those days, seemed like it would exist forever. Natalie found Mona overbearing and annoying, but once she and the other girls got to know her, they found out that she was a fascinating woman with many stories to tell. Watching that episode, especially given what is happening in Ukraine right now, and after having read Maus, was surprisingly poignant. Mona references being confronted by a rapey soldier in a corn field in Ukraine, as the Bolsheviks invaded during the Soviet-Ukranian War from 1917-1921.
Seventy years later, Ukraine decided to leave the Soviet Union, and there’s been trouble ever since. I have never been to Ukraine myself, but I have a friend whose wife is from there, and still has a lot of family there. I know that he and his wife and children are terrified for them. It seems that history is repeating itself. At the same time, I have known some fabulous Russian people, thanks to my time in Armenia, which is also a former Soviet Republic. In fact, that’s where I met my friend, who was working there after having served in the Peace Corps in Russia, back when Russia was briefly less menacing.
I remember that The Facts of Life was controversial to some people, especially during its most popular years. My former best friend’s mother would not let her watch the show. I seem to remember her mom was against the show because she happened to see the episode during the first season that referenced marijuana use. The show certainly didn’t promote the use of marijuana, but my ex friend’s mom was very conservative. She didn’t want her kid exposed to anything she was personally against. I seem to remember my ex friend was often doing things behind her mother’s back, and she was a lot more “experienced” in things than I was. My parents, by contrast, pretty much let me raise myself. We used to talk about how different our parents’ styles were, and we agreed that it would have been nice if there could have been a happy medium. My parents didn’t pay enough attention to me. Her parents, especially her mother, were too strict and intrusive. On the other hand, I don’t think her parents used corporal punishment as much as my dad did.
One thing I have noticed about The Facts of Life is that the characters could be very annoying, as well as very funny. My favorite character was probably Natalie, who was quick witted. I used to not like Jo (Nancy McKeon) much, because she alternated between being angry and snide, and being “vulnerable”. Now that I’m older, I appreciate that character more. I used to like Blair (Lisa Whelchel) more, although I still like Whelchel did a good job with her caricature of a spoiled princess. Tootie (Kim Fields) was pretty much always annoying to me, although she was pretty cute in the first season. During the show’s third and fourth seasons, Tootie did a lot of shrieking and whining. Some of the clothes were pretty hideous, too. Especially the knickers and gauchos… they brought back sad memories of childhood fashions.
But mostly, I’ve just noticed that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I really have been surprised by how forty years after The Facts of Life was a hit show, we’re still talking about, and arguing about, the same things. But nowadays, we have many more than than three networks on TV, and audiences are more sophisticated. A show like The Facts of Life probably wouldn’t last today, even though the writers tackled some courageous plots back in the day. Maybe it would be a good thing for today’s youngsters to watch that show. Maybe they’ll learn its lessons better than we did. But really, the best seasons were the earliest ones… as is the case for most long running shows.
Well, I guess it’s time to wrap up this post and get on with my Friday. Last night, Bill made a “stuffed meatloaf”, which is a dish I cooked for him when we were dating. It was one of the many tricks I had up my sleeve that helped me win his heart. It came out of a great cookbook called Virginia Hospitality, which was a gift given to me when I graduated college in 1994. It was put out by the Junior League of Hampton Roads, and since I was born in Hampton, it really is a relic from my hometown.
My husband’s younger daughter is pregnant, and when Bill told her he was making a stuffed meatloaf, she said that sounded so delicious. She had questions about it. So I sent her a copy of the cookbook, which also has a great recipe for cheese souffles. Below is a link for those who are curious about it. It’s definitely my favorite way to make meatloaf. I’m glad Bill learned how to make it, too. I hope she enjoys the book. It’s a gift that is uniquely from her long, lost stepmother. She really doesn’t know me at all, but maybe a cookbook from my origins will be a place to start getting acquainted.
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Here’s a reposted book review from March 6, 2018. It appears here as/is, as I consider what the subject of today’s fresh content will be.Lately, I’ve been watching tons of 80s era sitcoms. I find them oddly comforting.
Today’s title probably only means something if you were around in the late 70s and early to mid 80s and watched TV. That period of time happened to be during the prime years of my childhood, when we had no Internet and TV was the thing rotting everyone’s minds. I was a big fan of the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, which was an enormously popular and successful show during that time period. It’s been really sad for me, and for a lot of my peers, to watch the cast of that beloved show die off, one by one.
As of 2018, Conrad Bain, Dana Plato, and Gary Coleman are all dead. So are Mary Ann Mobley, Nedra Volz, and Dixie Carter. But we still have Todd Bridges, Janet Jackson, Mary Jo Catlett, Danny Cooksey, and Shavar Ross, who played Arnold Jackson’s (Gary Coleman’s character) best friend, Dudley Johnson. To this day, the only other Dudley I know of is Dudley Moore. I don’t think “Dudley” is a very popular name these days. According to Shavar Ross, his character “Dudley” was named after someone on the Diff’rent Strokes production crew. I learned that little tidbit and a handful more when I read Ross’s book, On The Set of Diff’rent Strokes.
The theme song for the famous sitcom that Gary Coleman so hated…
Ross published his book in 2007, when Gary Coleman and Conrad Bain were still alive. Nevertheless, the cast of Diff’rent Strokes did seem to have a bit of a curse. Dana Plato died of a drug overdose in 1999, having previously fallen into an abyss of drug addiction, porn, and crime. Nedra Volz, who played housekeeper Adelaide, had died years earlier of old age. Todd Bridges is still living, but he had some serious problems with drugs and was even tried for the attempted murder of Kenneth “Tex” Clay, a Los Angeles area drug dealer. And Gary Coleman just plain seemed pissed off at the world.
At the beginning of Ross’s book, he explains that the book isn’t about all of the scandals that plagued the cast of Diff’rent Strokes. Instead, he focuses on his experience getting cast in the role of Dudley. He also explains that he likes to write the way he speaks, so the book won’t be as grammatically correct as it could be. That made me twitch a little, but it’s fair enough, I guess. I only spent about $3 on the book, anyway.
I managed to read Ross’s book in a couple of hours. The only reason it took longer than an hour or so, is because I had to take a brief nap while I was reading. This book is only 36 pages and contains no pictures. It starts off with a brief history of Ross’s family of origin. He was born in the Bronx and his parents separated when he was six years old. His dad was an actor who decided to move to Los Angeles. His mom took Ross and his half sister to Macon, Georgia so they could be close to family while his mother went to college.
Ross went on a vacation to California to see his father at Christmas time. During that visit, he was discovered by a top children’s talent agent named Evelyn Shultz. Shultz noticed him when he was watching a play starring Kim Fields, who later became famous in her role as “Tootie” on The Facts of Life, which was a highly successful spinoff of Diff’rent Strokes. Ross writes that he was a fan of Diff’rent Strokes and had watched it in Georgia on a black and white portable TV. When the opportunity came up for him to audition for a part playing Arnold’s best friend, Dudley, he jumped at it, beating out about 250 kids.
Ross’s first appearance on Diff’rent Strokes was on a 1980 episode called “Teacher’s Pet”. His father was one of the extras on that episode, which was about Arnold’s dad, Phillip Drummond, asking out Arnold’s teacher after meeting her at a parent/teacher conference. The teacher began to dote on Arnold, causing his friends to tease him. The chemistry was good enough on that episode that Ross was asked to be a recurring character.
Basically, that’s about it for Ross’s story, which I think is a real shame. I appreciate that he didn’t want to share any dirt on the series. I imagine it would have been tempting to do that, since the show was so popular. He does offer a few superficial insights about Gary Coleman and the rest of the cast, but a lot of what he wrote was stuff I already knew. Like, for instance, Coleman loved trains. If you watched the show, you’d know that. He basically says Dana Plato was “nice” and Todd Bridges was “cool”. Janet Jackson was very “sweet and shy”. I think he could have gone into more detail without stooping to spreading gossip.
Also, while I think the book is basically well-written, especially for someone who flat out writes that he isn’t concerned with proper grammar, there are a lot of typos and some misspellings. I understand that editing is a chore, but it really wouldn’t have taken much to polish this book a bit more and give it a more professional air.
A funny rehash of Diff’rent Strokes’ most special episode, ever.
Finally, I can’t believe Ross didn’t write more about the episodes themselves. Anyone who watched Diff’rent Strokes knows that Ross was featured in a very special two part episode called “The Bicycle Man”. That episode, in which the late LDS character actor Gordon Jump starred, was about child molestation. The show handled the subject in a rather G-rated fashion, but it was still pretty shocking material at the time. It would have been interesting if Ross had dished a bit about that episode. But maybe it was too traumatic for him.
I do know that Ross eventually became a pastor, so maybe some subjects are taboo. He’s also been married for a long time and has two kids. It would have been nice if he’d written more about his family and his life beyond his acting career. That would have been interesting reading and he wouldn’t have been guilty of spreading dirt. He could have written more about how he broke into acting. The way the book reads now, it sounds like he went on vacation, lucked into meeting an agent, and *poof*, he was an actor. I think he could have offered more details and a more accurate accounting of his time. What did his family think of his success? Did his mom stay in Georgia with his sister? Did Shavar Ross live with his dad? He addresses none of this in his very brief book.
Although I appreciate that Shavar Ross took the time to write his story, I think On The Set of Diff’rent Strokes could have been a whole lot better. I don’t think it’s terrible as much as it is incomplete. It’s just a very short book and doesn’t reveal much at all. I think if a person is going to go to the trouble of publishing a book, he or she should make it worth reading. This book probably doesn’t reveal anything that a determined researcher can’t find online. But, on the positive side, it’s cheap, and Ross straight up says he’s not going to dish much. At least I didn’t spring for the paperback version, which sells for $7.95.
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