"The Facts of Life" ended up being a success for NBC at a time when it didn't have many of those. But before it could premiere, it had to get a cast together, and that required spinning off an actor from another successful sitcom; that actor was Charlotte Rae who played Mrs. Edna Garrett, the Drummonds' housekeeper, on "Diff'rent Strokes." Mrs. Garrett was picked to lead the spinoff because she was enough of a draw that she would attract eyeballs to "The Facts of Life," but not enough of a loss that "Diff'rent Strokes" would suffer for it.

Charlotte Rae talked to Entertainment Weekly for an oral history of "The Facts of Life," and she explained that, after Fred Silverman took over CBS and ABC as president, and then took over NBC, he was planning to make it the best network on TV. "When I

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