Charlotte Rae Net Worth

Charlotte Rae's Quotes

• I can't even go to Barbados without people wanting to hug me and 'Oh, Mrs. Garrett!', you know, it [The Facts of Life] really had an impact on their lives.
• [in 1979, about her small, awkward, plump stature]: How did I fit? I didn't. I felt inferior. I had this tremendous need to perform. I wanted to be acceptable to my peers. To feel equal. I had an older sister, Beverly, who seemed to be very secure. I had a younger sister, Mimi, who was cute! I thought if I could just be a big star, I'd feel like somebody too.
• [on theater]: I became drunk with power. I was burning to get to New York. But my parents begged me to stay. I needed to graduate, they said. I did soap opera on radio in Chicago. When I told the director my name was Lubotsky, he said, 'But you can't use that.' My father was very hurt. 'But why?,' he wanted to know.
• [on Teresa Brewer]: Teresa Brewer and I stood on the bar and sang 'Can't Help Lovin' That Man' and 'Cockeyed Optimist. Sometimes a drunk would give me 50 cents. My father came in once and nearly died. With tears in his eyes, he told me the cigarette girl had tried to hustle him.
• [on her professional friendship with Norman Lear]: So open. So up front. Not a big shot. Not afraid to take a risk, make a mistake.

Interesting Facts about Charlotte Rae

1. Knew Jeffrey Hunter through their work in local theater as teenagers.
2. Rae divorced her husband, composer John Strauss, before starting Diff'rent Strokes (1978). Her youngest son, Larry Strauss, is a South Central Los Angeles school teacher and a writer. He helped write her memoir, "The Facts of My Life" (2015), revealing the reason her marriage ended in divorce was because her husband came out as bisexual and wanted to have an open marriage. She didn't want that kind of marriage but remained friends with him and his partner, artist Lionel Friedman, until both men died.
3. Starred in "Pippin" at the New Jersey Paper Mill Playhouse.
4. Created the role of Mammy Yokum in the Broadway musical "Lil' Abner".
5. The middle daughter of three musical girls born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Esther Ottenstein (a childhood friend of Golda Meir) and Meyer Lubotsky (a retail tire business owner), Rae's older sister Beverly, was an opera singer who died of pancreatic cancer in 1998, and her younger sister, Mimi, is a musician and composer.
6. Discovered young Mindy Cohn for The Facts of Life (1979) show while Rae and the TV show were at an all-girls school preparing for research and casting. Rae was instrumental in getting young student Cohn cast.
7. Was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award: in 1966, as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Musical) for "Pickwick" (based on the Charles Dickens work), and in 1969, as Best Actress (Dramatic) for "Morning, Noon, and Night".
8. Rae's classmates at Northwestern University included Cloris Leachman, Paul Lynde, Charlton Heston, Martha Hyer, Patricia Neal and Agnes Nixon. Because they were seated alphabetically and her last name was Lubotsky, she & Lynde were seated next to each other. Rae joined the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority. She appeared in Northwestern's annual student theater extravaganza, "The Waa-Mu Show", but left without graduating in order to pursue her career.
9. Left The Facts of Life (1979), at the beginning of the eighth season, because she felt her character was repeating herself. After she tried to reduced her role, the producers and NBC were against her decision of her departure, so she was being replaced by Cloris Leachman, who stayed on the show until the show's cancellation in 1988.
10. Created the Natalie Green character for her future The Facts of Life (1979) co-star, Mindy Cohn, named after one of Charlotte's best friends, back in high school.
11. Before she was a successful actress, Rae worked in radio and television in Chicago. She dropped Lubotsky as her professional surname after a radio personality told her that her last name wouldn't cut it. Her father briefly took mild umbrage at this but accepted her decision.
12. Created the "Beverly Ann Stickle" character for her future The Facts of Life (1979) co-star, Cloris Leachman, named for Rae's elder sister, an opera singer. Rae and Leachman (who was only 8 days younger) both attended Northwestern University at the same time.
13. Each summer, while she was in college, she also appeared in summer stock.
14. Rae's elder son Andy was autistic. She knew something was wrong since he was a baby and kept taking him to doctors who told her that she was worrying over nothing. Eventually, a doctor who diagnosed childhood cognitive disabilities told her that her son was autistic. She thought he said "artistic" and was relieved. Then, he wrote out the word "autistic" and explained to her Andy's condition and that if he didn't improve by age six, he would have to be institutionalized. She was devastated. But she and her husband helped Andy as much as they could, and when he grew up, he had a girlfriend Rhonda, who was also challenged, but more-functioning than him. Her mother Edna was warm, caring, and wise, and became fast friends with Charlotte. When it came time to giving Mrs. Garrett's first name on The Facts of Life (1979) , she insisted to the writers the character be named Edna, because she wanted her character to have the same qualities. When she told the real Edna about it, she was very flattered and honored. Andy died in 1999, predeceasing both of his parents.
15. Before she was a successful actress, she used to work at nearly every nightclub for unfamiliar singers in New York City.
16. Remained good friends with Lisa Whelchel, Nancy McKeon, Mindy Cohn and Kim Fields only after The Facts of Life (1979) ended. During the run of the show, however, she felt that the girls were "politely distant" with her. It was almost a decade after she left the show when McKeon asked her to guest-star on her show Can't Hurry Love (1995) that she knew the reason why. McKeon confided in her that the girls thought of her more as a boss, rather than a colleague. In reality, Charlotte was a hired-hand like they were and had nothing to do with the network and producers' decision to fire the six cast members during the first season.
17. Rae got the role of Edna Garrett on Diff'rent Strokes (1978), because Norman Lear had been friends with her years before. This led her to starring in The Facts of Life (1979), the year later, which she stayed on the show from 1979 to 1986. She was 53 years old when The Facts of Life (1979) began.
18. Her ex-husband John Strauss served as musical composer of Car 54, Where Are You? (1961), in which she co-starred.
19. At 16, she was an apprentice with the Port Players, a professional theater company that came for the summer to Milwaukee, with several established actors.
20. Composed The Facts of Life (1979)'s 1st season theme song.