This is a list of characters from the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes.

Phillip Drummond is a fictional character on the hit television series, Diff'rent Strokes, he was portrayed by Emmy Award nominee and Golden Globe winning television actor, Conrad Bain, who previously worked on Maude.

Phillip Drummond is a wealthy white widower, who runs the Trans Aillen Co. Housing Development, and was born December 3, 1931 in Manhattan, New York.

Phillip has a daughter, named Kimberly, and two adopted African American sons, 12-year-old Willis, and 8-year-old Arnold Jackson. He also had a somewhat eccentric older sister named Sophia. Arnold and Willis's mother, Lucy Jackson, worked as a housekeeper for Phillip Drummond many years ago, but her death-bed wish was that Mr. Drummond would take care of her two sons. In the first episode of the series, Phillip welcomes Arnold and Willis into his home. Arnold quickly becomes attached to his new environment, but Willis nearly ruins it for him by hastily deciding that he and Arnold will move back to Harlem.

Diff'rent Strokes had a total of 189 episodes during its run from November 3, 1978 through March 7, 1986. This is a complete list of episodes including synopses and air dates. Episodes are in air date order.

Diff'rent Strokes is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from November 3, 1978 to May 4, 1985, and on ABC from September 27, 1985 to March 7, 1986. The series stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as Arnold and Willis Jackson, two African American boys from Harlem who are taken in by a rich white Park Avenue businessman named Phillip Drummond (Conrad Bain) and his daughter Kimberly (Dana Plato), for whom their deceased mother previously worked. During the first season and first half of the second season, Charlotte Rae also starred as the Drummonds' housekeeper, Mrs. Garrett (who ultimately spun-off into her own successful show, The Facts of Life).

The series made stars out of child actors Coleman, Bridges, and Plato, and became known for the "very special episodes" in which serious issues such as racism, illegal drug use and child sexual abuse were dramatically explored. The lives of stars Coleman, Bridges and Plato, however, were later plagued by legal troubles and drug addiction, as the stardom and success they achieved while on the show eluded them after the series was cancelled.

Gary Wayne Coleman (February 8, 1968 – May 28, 2010) was an American actor, known for his childhood role as Arnold Jackson in the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986) and for his small stature as an adult. He was described in the 1980s as "one of television's most promising stars". After a successful childhood acting career, Coleman struggled financially later in life. In 1989, he successfully sued his parents and business advisor over misappropriation of his assets, only to declare bankruptcy a decade later.

Coleman was born in Zion, Illinois, outside Chicago. He was adopted by Edmonia Sue and W.G. Coleman, a nurse practitioner and fork-lift operator, respectively. He suffered from focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, an autoimmune kidney disease. Because of his chronic illness, combined with the corticosteroids and other medications used to treat it, his growth was limited to 4 ft 7 in (1.40 m), and his face retained a childlike appearance well into adulthood. He underwent two unsuccessful kidney transplants in 1973 and 1984, and required daily dialysis.

Conrad Stafford Bain (born February 4, 1923) is a Canadian-American actor. His television credits include a leading role as Phillip Drummond in the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes and as Dr. Arthur Harmon on Maude.

Bain was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, the son of Jean Agnes Young and Stafford Harrison Bain, who was a wholesaler. He studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts before serving in the Canadian Army during World War II. He then studied in New York at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included actor Charles Durning and comedian Don Rickles; he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1946 before graduating in 1948.

Bain has three sons and a daughter with Monica Sloan, to whom he was married until her death in 2009. His identical twin brother is Bonar Bain, who once played the brother of his Maude character, Dr. Arthur Harmon.

Conrad Bain now lives in an independent living center in Livermore, California, called Heritage Estates.^{[citation needed]}

After a stint at the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival, Bain had further success as a stage actor in the 1956 Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh.The New York Times reviewer noted that his role was "especially well acted." Bain's other Broadway theatre credits include Candide, Advise and Consent, An Enemy of the People, Uncle Vanya, and On Borrowed Time. On Off Broadway, he appeared in the original run of Steambath. While doing stage work in New York City, Bain also found work on television appearing in the soap opera Dark Shadows as the town inkeeper, Mr. Wells, during season 1 and 2. His character was killed off by werewolf Chris Jennings (Don Briscoe).