Sherrié Austin

In 1979, the producers of "Diff'rent Strokes" spun off housekeeper Edna Garrett onto her own show. Set at an all-girls' boarding school, "The Facts of Life" centered around Mrs. Garrett and seven young schoolgirls. In 1980, new TV producers took over production of the "The Facts of Life". Their goal was to improve the show's ratings. They did so by firing more than half of the cast, including four young girls: Felice Schachter, Julie Anne Haddock, Julie Piekarski, and Molly Ringwald. This video tells that story. This video compilation uses material from six sources: "The Facts of Life (Biography Channel)", "Remembering The Facts of Life (2006)", "After Facts (2006)", "Nancy McKeon (Biography Channel)", Julie Piekarski's Taco Bell commercial (1985), and a clip from "The Little Chill" (1986). I would have liked to have included clips from E!'s excellent "True Hollywood Story: The Facts of Life" (1999), but it appears to not be available on the Internet. Of the four biographies used in this video, "Remembering The Facts of Life" and "After Facts" are more fair and balanced in their portrayal of the 'lost girls', and are better sources than either of the others. Unfortunately, Warren Littlefield's comments went unchallenged in the Biography Channel's Facts of Life retrospective, and those comments were somewhat disrespectful to the actresses in question. The four "lost girls" appeared on "Facts" occasionally afterwards, but their roles were usually small. Molly Ringwald later (1986) remembered her sole guest appearance as her "worst job": "Worst job: Having to go back to Facts of Life as a semi-regular after they kicked me off. It was humiliating." She never went back after doing one episode as a recurring actress. Julie, Julie Anne, and Felice, however, never became break-out movie stars, and thus made guest appearances on "The Facts of Life" in Seasons 2, 3, and 8, as well as appearing in archival footage in two flashback episodes in Season 5. The four actresses were nominated in 2008 for a TV Land Award, in the category "Favorite Character(s) Who 'Went Missing'". Anyway, enjoy!

• published: 10 Jun 2013
• views: 227302