List of The Facts of Life characters
This is a list of characters from the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life.
Characters table
Main characters
Edna Garrett
Edna Ann Garrett Gaines, known as Mrs. Garrett or Mrs. G, is played by the actress Charlotte Rae from 1978 to 1986. Garrett is the youngest child in a large family, born and raised on a farm near Appleton, Wisconsin. Her exact age is never disclosed during the series but on several occasions, it was hinted or implied that she was somewhere in her fifties. On Diff'rent Strokes, she was the housekeeper to the Drummond family in New York City after Willis and Arnold's mom Lucy died. In season 1 of The Facts of Life, she is shown to have taken a job as house mother at the Eastland School for Girls in Peekskill, New York.Over the years, Mrs. Garrett's role on The Facts of Life changes. At first, she is merely a live-in supervisor for the girls of Eastland; in the second season she became their in-house dietitian who managed the school's cafeteria. The producers didn’t know that in order to become a registered dietitian, she would have needed a four-year degree in Nutrition, satisfied internship requirements, and passed a national exam-impossible to have accomplished in one season. Mrs. Garrett does describe herself as a registered nurse in a season one episode.
Mrs. Garrett was married twice, divorced and widowed ; one early episode showed Mr. Garrett coming to town to woo her and reconcile but she was unsuccessful because Edna felt that his gambling addiction would always be an obstacle. She had two sons, a singer/songwriter/carpenter named Alex and an accountant named Raymond. Raymond helped her raise funds and secure commercial space so she could open her own gourmet food shop, "Edna's Edibles", in season 5. The girls, who had previously lived with Mrs. Garrett at Eastland and worked with her in the kitchen to pay off various restitution-related expenses, moved into the living space attached to "Edna's Edibles" and continued to work for Mrs. Garrett in the shop.
In season 7, "Edna's Edibles" was extensively damaged by fire; it was rebuilt as a gift shop called "Over Our Heads." Since the insurance on "Edna's Edibles" was insufficient to rebuild it by the time of the fire, the girls contributed their insurance claim checks to help rebuild, effectively making Mrs. Garrett and the girls equal partners in the business. Edna Garrett was a mentor to the girls at Eastland, functioning in loco parentis. At times the girls would take her for granted and forget that Edna herself had problems. Many times Edna would lash out at the girls when they got careless with her. In one episode, she actually fires them from "Edna's Edibles" when their irresponsible behavior ends up costing her $500 in fines after a dismal health inspection. She hires them back the next day when the girls promise her that they will be more responsible at their jobs. She also fires George, when he falls behind on his work constructing "Over Our Heads" but they later make up. Mrs. Garrett is a Democrat. She is also against censorship, such as book banning.
Mrs. Garrett remarries in season 8. She and her new husband, Dr. Bruce Gaines, rejoin the Peace Corps to work in eastern Africa. Edna was replaced by her sister, Beverly Ann Stickle, who needs a place to stay. However, in the reunion movie that aired in 2001, Mrs. Garrett reunites with Blair, Natalie, and [|Tootie] at a Peekskill hotel owned by Blair, and which is run by Mrs. Garrett's son, Raymond. It is also revealed that Mrs. Garrett and Tootie are widows. It's revealed that Mrs. Garrett is in a romantic relationship with a ship captain.
Mrs. Garrett also appears on the Hello, Larry episode "The Trip", the first of three crossovers between the shows Diff'rent Strokes and Hello, Larry.
Blair Warner
Blair Warner is played by Lisa Whelchel. Blair is 14-years-old in the series' pilot episode; an episode in the 1985–1986 season centered on her 21st birthday.In season one, Blair is portrayed as a rich and rebellious girl from a blue blood background. She is seen smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and enjoying great popularity with boys. Unlike many of her classmates, she is looking to lose her virginity. When the show was retooled in the second season, all instances of her rebellion were either dropped or given to the new character of Jo Polniaczek. Blair was rewritten as an extremely wealthy and unashamedly spoiled "daddy's girl" and socialite from Manhattan
Throughout the show, Blair is shown to be intelligent, scoring barely below Jo on the Eastland entrance exam. At Eastland, she wins most awards and is seen to be a talented artist. At Langley College, she passes her law school LSATs with only one weekend of studying. Blair is often characterized as vain, arrogant, and shallow, with her self-interest regularly played for laughs. However, especially by the later seasons of the show, she is shown to be funny, emotional, generous, and loving to Mrs. Garrett and her friends, especially Jo Polniaczek.
Blair's chief foil is Jo, who appears in the show's second season. At first, the two are portrayed as rivals and complete opposites, with Blair from her privileged background, and Jo as a street-smart Bronx native. Once Jo arrives at Eastland, her witty verbal sparring matches and arguments with Blair are a regular feature on the show, especially in the first few seasons. However, as the episodes continue, viewers quickly see Blair begin sticking up for and standing by Jo in her time of need, with their relationship evolving into a dueling sisters dynamic. In the second episode of season two, Jo can already be seen defending Blair from someone who attempts to steal her expensive watch while the girls are in a holding cell. Later in the same season, Blair nearly attacks an old boyfriend when she learns he tried to assault Jo and, in other episodes, she tries to stop Jo from going through with a teenage marriage.
As the show progresses, Jo and Blair develop a close friendship, although they continue to trade wisecracks and sarcastic comments, usually good-naturedly. In the ninth season episode "Down and Out in Malibu: Part 1", Jo introduces Blair as her best friend. She later asks Blair to be her maid of honor.
Jo and Blair experience many emotionally charged moments throughout the series, highlighting the complexity and back-and-forth nature of their friendship. In other episodes, Blair's former step sister Meg visits Eastland to tell Blair that she is going to become a nun. In “Best Sister Part 1" and “Best Sister Part 2" it's revealed that Blair is an atheist because when she asked God to not allow her parents' divorce to become final, her prayer wasn't answered. In "Best Sister Part 2," Blair and Jo get into a fight when Blair's stepsister inspires Jo to consider becoming a nun, too. Worried she'll ruin her life, and also angry by her personal disbelief in religion, Blair lashes out at Jo, who hits her in response. The episode ends with Jo apologizing to Blair and promising she'll never do that again.
In the season nine episode, "Less Than Perfect", Blair is in a car accident and reveals her fears regarding her scars only to Jo, who goes into her hospital room after hours in order to see that she's okay. This moment marked a turning point for how Blair viewed herself and her desire to be perfect. Initially, Blair felt she needed to be seen as perfect, because she is the heiress to her father's multimillion-dollar business, Warner Textile Mills. In the hospital, she privately tells Jo a story from her childhood to illustrate how her mother had insisted she be perfect from a young age. In the uncut version of the episode that was released on the DVD sets, Jo is shown having a conversation with Casey, Blair's then-boyfriend, while waiting in the hospital waiting room. Casey asks Jo why they care so much about Blair, despite her vanity and shallowness. Jo tells Casey, "Because she's Blair, and there's nobody else like her."
In the season four episode "Magnificent Obsession," Jo stays up all night with Blair in an attempt to keep her from calling an emotionally abusive boyfriend, in another moment where Blair worries about her need to be seen as a perfect by a guy who talked only about her flaws.
However, Blair's delusions of grandeur are usually played for laughs as Natalie, Tootie, or Jo make sarcastic remarks about her "beauty," "perfect" personality," or "naturally blonde hair." Any crisis at Eastland would usually prompt a suggested solution from Blair, preceded by her catch phrase: "I just had another one of my brilliant ideas!" More often than not, though, her "brilliant ideas" were actually quite the opposite, although on at least two occasions they turned out to actually be good. She also says this on occasion to be sarcastic, particularly with Jo. For example, she said her catchphrase once while Jo was distractedly mopping the cafeteria floor and followed it up with "if you move your feet around while mopping, we just might be done by lunchtime."
Blair's parents are shown to be divorced, and although she doesn't usually show it, Blair wishes to have a nuclear family like all of her friends. Later in the series, her mother remarries and gives birth to a baby girl fathered by her most recent ex-husband. Originally, Blair's mother did not want to go through with the pregnancy, which upset Blair, who was excited about being a sister. She becomes her mother's labor coach when Bailey is born on Christmas Day.
A secret Blair originally kept from her friends was that her cousin Geri had cerebral palsy. She is not embarrassed by her cousin, but rather jealous of her, since Blair is used to being the center of attention. Mrs. Garrett tells Blair not to lash out against Geri because of her jealousy and Blair joins Geri, a successful comedian, onstage at an impromptu comedy show Geri throws at Eastland Academy.
In the episode "Legacy," Blair, initially enthusiastic about a library being built with her family's funds and named after her late maternal grandfather, Judge Carlton Blair, thus immortalizing the name "Blair," is horrified to learn her grandfather had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The revelation devastates Blair and makes her question all her assumptions about her supposed "superiority," even though Jo assures her, "You're not prejudiced; you're a snob." She almost withdraws the library funding to avoid commemorating her grandfather, but finally agrees to let it be built so long as it is not given the "Blair" name.
In season four, Blair is showing graduating Eastland and, in season five, attending nearby Langley College with Jo. She considers a career in fashion or art, but ultimately graduates with a plan to study law. She gives the graduating speech at Langley after Jo, who is supposed to give the speech, is denied the chance by the college due to her speech's content. Jo had planned to give an honest speech about the real world outside of college, but the administration wanted something more uplifting. Despite the college's disapproval, Blair ends up reading Jo's speech instead of her own.
During her years at Langley, Blair works with Jo, Natalie, Tootie, and Mrs. Garrett at Mrs. Garrett's bakery, Edna's Edibles, and later, their gift shop, Over Our Heads. After graduating from Langley as an undergraduate, she studies for the LSATs with Jo's help and passes the exam. She then enrolls in Langley's law school. In season 9, she purchases the local community center where Jo is employed as a social worker in order to save the facility. Throughout the season, she can be seen going over the community center's budget and managing its financials. In "On the Edge," she jokes about giving Jo an advance on her salary.
In the series finale, she purchases the financially troubled Eastland Academy and turns it into a co-educational school. These final episodes were originally meant to introduce a new spin-off series that would have had Blair running Eastland. However, the series wasn't picked up.
In the 2001 TV movie The Facts of Life Reunion, Blair refers to herself as a lawyer. She is still wealthy and owns a hotel empire with her husband, Tad, managed by Mrs. Garrett's son, Raymond. In the movie, the girls gather at one of Blair's hotels, The Peekskill Inn, located near Eastland, which Blair had previously sold. Jo's daughter calls her “Aunt Blair," emphasizing their still-close relationship. At the end of the movie, Tad is volunteering at a children's home, which makes Blair realize she's ready to have children. She and Tad discuss both having and adopting children.
Note: Actress Geri Reischl was originally given the role of Blair Warner in the television pilot Garrett's Girls but was forced to give it up due to her contract with General Mills.