Charlotte Rae


Charlotte Rae Lubotsky was an American character actress and singer whose career spanned sixty-six years.
Rae was known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and its spin-off, The Facts of Life. She received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy in 1982. She also appeared in two Facts of Life television films: The Facts of Life Goes to Paris in 1982 and The Facts of Life Reunion in 2001. She voiced the character of "Nanny" in 101 Dalmatians: The Series and Aunt Pristine Figg in Tom and Jerry: The Movie. She also appeared as Gammy Hart in Girl Meets World.
In 2015, she returned to film in the feature film Ricki and the Flash, with Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Rick Springfield. In November 2015, Rae released her autobiography, The Facts of My Life, which was co-written with her son, Larry Strauss.

Early life

Charlotte Rae Lubotsky was born on April 22, 1926, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her parents, Esther and Meyer Lubotsky, were Russian Jewish immigrants. Mr. Lubotsky was a retail tire business owner. Rae's mother, Esther Lubotsky, had been childhood friends with Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. Rae was the second of three sisters, in between Beverly and Miriam. For the first ten years of her life, Rae's family lived in an apartment built for them above her father's Milwaukee tire store. In 1936, her parents purchased a home for the family in nearby Shorewood, Wisconsin. She graduated from Shorewood High School in 1944.
Rae attended Northwestern University, although she did not complete her studies. While there, she met friend Cloris Leachman. Many years later, Leachman succeeded Rae on The Facts of Life for the show's last two seasons. At Northwestern she met several then unknown stars and producers, including Agnes Nixon, Charlton Heston, Paul Lynde, Gerald Freedman, Claude Akins and songwriter Sheldon Harnick. In a 2016 interview with Milwaukee Talks, she said about her decision in appearing in only dramatic television: "When I started out, I wanted to be a serious actor, I never thought I'd get into comedy." When a radio personality told her that her last name would not do, she dropped it, to her father's chagrin.

Career

Acting

In 1954, Rae made her TV debut on episodes of Look Up and Live and The United States Steel Hour. This led to roles on other similar variety shows such as Armstrong Circle Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre, NBC Television Opera Theatre, The Philco Television Playhouse, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The DuPont Show of the Week, and The Phil Silvers Show.
Her first significant success was on the sitcom Car 54, Where Are You?, in which she played Sylvia Schnauzer, the wife of Officer Leo Schnauzer. This was followed by roles in 'Way Out; The Defenders; Temperatures Rising; The Love Boat; The Partridge Family; Love, American Style; McMillan & Wife; Barney Miller; Phyllis; 227; Murder, She Wrote; St. Elsewhere; Diagnosis: Murder; All in the Family; and Good Times. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her supporting role in the 1975 drama Queen of the Stardust Ballroom. In January 1975, Rae became a cast member on Norman Lear's ABC television comedy Hot l Baltimore, wherein she played Mrs. Bellotti, whose dysfunctional adult son Moose, who was never actually seen, lived at the "hot l". Mrs. Bellotti, who was a bit odd herself, would visit Moose and then laugh about all the odd situations that Moose would get into with the others living at the hotel. Rae also appeared in season 3 of Sesame Street as Molly, the Mail Lady.
Rae was a regular on The Rich Little Show, a variety show that ran for 11 episodes in 1976.

''Diff'rent Strokes''

In 1978, NBC was losing to both CBS and ABC in sitcom ratings, and Fred Silverman, future producer and former head of CBS, ABC, and NBC, insisted that Norman Lear produce Diff'rent Strokes. Knowing that Rae was one of Lear's favorite actresses he hired her immediately for the role of housekeeper Edna Garrett, and she co-starred with Conrad Bain in all 24 episodes of the first season. In "The Girls' School" episode, Mrs. Garrett is asked to help out at Kimberly Drummond's private school for girls called East Lake. At the end of the episode, Mrs. Garrett decides to return to her housekeeping job at the Drummond residence.

''The Facts of Life''

In July 1979, Rae proposed the idea for a spinoff based on "The Girls' School" episode from Diff'rent Strokes. NBC approved the show, to be called The Facts of Life, which would portray a housekeeper turned housemother for boarding students in a prestigious private school. The program would deal with issues facing teenagers such as weight gain and dieting, depression, drugs, alcohol, and dating. Rae had a stipulation written into her contract that said she could return to Diff'rent Strokes if the new spinoff was not successful.
After working as a character actress/comedienne in supporting roles or in guest shots on television series and specials, The Facts of Life not only gave Rae her best-known role but also finally made her a television star.
The Facts of Life had marginal ratings at first, but after a major restructuring including some cast alterations, plus a time change for the second season, the show became a ratings winner between 1980 and 1986. Between the first and second seasons, Rae went on a very stringent diet and at the start of the second season had lost an enormous amount of weight. As a result, it was briefly mentioned in the second-season premiere two-part episode "The New Girl" and in the sixth installment "Shoplifting" that Rae's character of Mrs. Garrett had also gone on a diet and lost weight. As the seasons passed, the show's success and Rae's popularity continued to grow. In 1982, Rae received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Edna Garrett in The Facts of Life. However, midway through both the 1984–85 and 1985–86 seasons, the series was undergoing a gradual transition. It was at this time that Rae's appearances on the show were reduced at her request, and as a result, she was not seen in several episodes. The reason for this was that Rae felt that the girls' characters were maturing and not requiring as much of Mrs. Garrett's rearing and advice.
Towards the end of the seventh season, Rae began to contemplate leaving the series. She wanted to spend more time doing theater as well as do some traveling. The producers of the show tried to persuade Rae to continue with The Facts of Life for at least another two years, but she felt her time on the program had run its course and decided to leave at the end of the 1985–86 season. Academy and Emmy Award-winning actress Cloris Leachman was signed as her replacement. In order to help with the transition, Rae agreed to make her last appearance on the show in the two-part eighth-season premiere "Out of Peekskill". In that episode, Edna Garrett would marry, leave Peekskill with her new husband, and they both would move to Africa to work in the Peace Corps. In that same installment, Leachman would be introduced as Mrs. Garrett's sister, Beverly Ann Stickle, who would attend the wedding, and then with Mrs. Garrett's departure, she would then take over as a mother figure and friend for the girls. Rae and Leachman were very good friends having known each other since they were students at Northwestern University. Leachman inherited Rae's top billing in the cast and her character remained for the show's last two years. The part of Beverly Ann was quite similar to Leachman's character of Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Phyllis from the 1970s. The cast change from Rae to Leachman did not seriously affect viewership. The series continued to garner healthy ratings until it ended in the spring of 1988. NBC wanted to renew the show for a tenth season, but cast members Nancy McKeon and Mindy Cohn wanted to move on to other things.
After her departure from The Facts of Life, Rae still kept busy acting. In 1993, she voiced the villainess, Aunt Pristine Figg, in Tom and Jerry: The Movie. From 1997-98, she voiced the character of "Nanny" in 101 Dalmatians: The Series. In 2000, she starred as Berthe in the Paper Mill Playhouse production of Pippin.
In 2001, Rae, Lisa Whelchel, Mindy Cohn, and Kim Fields were reunited in a TV movie, The Facts of Life Reunion. In 2007, the entire cast was invited to attend the TV Land Awards where several members of the cast, including Rae, sang the show's theme song.
In 2007, she appeared in a cabaret show at the Plush Room in San Francisco for several performances. In the 2008 movie You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Rae had a role as an older woman who has a fling with Adam Sandler's character. On February 18, 2009, she appeared in a small role as Mrs. Ford in the Life episode "I Heart Mom". In 2015, she was in the feature film Ricki and the Flash, with Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Rick Springfield. Her later career also included guest roles on shows such as The King of Queens, ER and Girl Meets World.
In a 2015 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Rae said that The Facts of Life series had an off-stage scale to weigh the girls, but that the pressure had the opposite effect producers were hoping for; "The more they tried to pressure them and weigh them and threaten them, the more they would eat. It's not the way you handle adolescence. You don't do that."
On April 19, 2011, the entire cast was reunited again to attend the TV Land Awards, where the show was nominated and won the award for Pop Culture Icon. The same day, Nancy McKeon and Kim Fields gave a speech in honor of her 85th birthday. The cast did likewise on ABC's Good Morning America, where at the end of the segment, reporter Cynthia McFadden wished Rae a happy birthday, and the cast sang the show's theme song.