Reunion Movie Undoes Pact of ‘Life’ Stars

During the final season of the long-running NBC sitcom “The Facts of Life,” the series’ four stars--Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, Mindy Cohn and Nancy McKeon--made a pact that they would never do a reunion movie.

They kept their promise for 13 years. But come Sunday, there they will be in “The Facts of Life Reunion,” airing on ABC’s “The Wonderful World of Disney.”

Or three of them, anyway. Notably missing from the movie is McKeon, who currently plays a San Francisco police detective on the Lifetime series “The Division.”

“Nancy is the only one who followed through on this promise,” says Whelchel, who played the wealthy, spoiled Blair Warner on the series, which began in 1979 as a spinoff of “Diff’rent Strokes.” Officially, a conflict in shooting schedules is cited as the reason for McKeon’s absence.

“We were all concerned [a reunion movie] would be bad and boring and maudlin,” Whelchel recalls. “So when we got this script, I was so thrilled that it is 85% laugh-out-loud broad comedy. I think we each have one scene where we show that we have grown and are still growing. It has a message but it’s surrounded by lots of laughter.”

Originally, “Facts of Life” focused on Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae), who had been the housekeeper for the Drummond household on “Strokes” before becoming the housemother at the prestigious Eastland school for young women. Besides Blair, her charges included Jo (McKeon), a tough street kid from the Bronx and Blair’s foil; Tootie (Fields), an aspiring actress; and her best friend, the class clown, Natalie (Cohn). The most famous alumnus of the series is George Clooney, who played a hunky, mullet-haired carpenter named George Burnett during the 1985-86 season.

Blair, Whelchel reports, “is as vain and shallow as ever, which I am happy about. She is so much fun to play. I am glad she didn’t grow up and mature too drastically. I wouldn’t want to play that. That isn’t fun. She married a man as wealthy as she is, named Ted Warner, so she is now Blair Warner Warner. They own hotels all over the world and live in them in the penthouse suites.”

In real life, Whelchel is a devout Christian married to a minister and has three children. She and her family are traveling the country for a year in an RV. Whelchel has a new religious-themed book out, “The Facts of Life and Other Lessons My Father Taught Me.”

The movie finds Tootie as a widowed parent who is a successful talk show host. At the conclusion of the series, she had gone to England to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. “She became very frustrated that she was not able to really be successful as an actress, and then she ended up in the talk show medium,” says Fields, who has appeared in several TV shows and movies, and now does a radio show in Chicago.

Everybody agrees they had a ball making the movie in Toronto last September. “I did think the timing was right,” says Cohn, who continues to act, does voice-over work and has a production company. “We are kind of in an ‘80s resurgence, and I think everyone is craving a little nostalgia, you know?”

The series had a major renaissance in the past year when reruns began airing on cable’s Nick at Nite. “There is a whole other generation of girls that are recognizing me that used to care less,” Whelchel says. “It’s fun, and it’s fun for my kids, too. I have just been Mom for so long, and they are seeing me in a new light--not that it is gaining me anything as far as respect goes!”

In the series, Natalie wanted to be a journalist, and the movie finds her living out her dream as a globe-trotting TV news producer who is juggling two suitors. “The movie doesn’t pick up where the show left off. It picks up where they are now, which was very attractive to all of us,” Cohn says. “And a lot of people, including myself, are going through these life choices--do I want to stay with this career? Do I want to be married or not? Can I have it all? It is kind of Natalie’s story line.”

Although the series was built around Rae, she left the show in 1986, with her character marrying a doctor and joining the Peace Corps. “She has grown up, as [the girls] have grown up,” Rae says of Mrs. Garrett. “She and the doctor traveled and they had a wonderful life, and he died and she felt lost. Then she got a message from the girls and realized she should get together for Thanksgiving. Along the way, a couple of guys become interested in me. She’s really with it. She is with the Internet and computers. She has a Palm Pilot.”

The film also has a bit of fun as to why Jo is absent from Thanksgiving. “They say she’s a police officer and was escorting a witness in a mob trial,” Fields says. “Then Mindy has a line like, ‘Too bad, I haven’t seen her in a lifetime!’”

“The Wonderful World of Disney: The Facts of Life Reunion” can be seen Sunday at 7 p.m. on ABC. The network has rated it TV-PG-D (may be unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for dialogue).