The Facts of Life was a beloved girls’ television show that aired from 1979 to 1988. The show followed the lives of four young women as they navigated through drama, both in their personal and school lives. With its comedic timing and relatable storylines, the show was everything a girl could ask for. We loved it so much that we had to go ahead and find out some behind-the-scenes juice; we knew there had to be some!
Spin Off
Edna Garrett, the Drummond family’s housekeeper, decided to take a job as a caretaker at an all-girls prep school in Eastland. The Facts of Life was a spin-off from the hit series Diff’rent Strokes and focused on Garrett and her interactions with the young women at Eastland.
The show was unsuccessful at first, so much so that NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff needed to convince producers not to cancel it. Tartikoff told the New York Times in a 1988 interview,” (producer) Norman Lear, who didn’t want his name on the show, probably earned about $30 million by insisting the show should be canceled.”