TV sitcom housemother had varied career

Charlotte Rae, the quavery-voiced redhead who started out on Broadway but was best known as a housemother in two hit 1980s sitcoms, died Sunday at home in Los Angeles. She was 92.

Her death followed a series of illnesses, including several cancers and a history of heart failure, her son, Larry Strauss, said.

Rae was a fixture on Broadway and television for six decades, but to millions she was Edna Garrett, a part she played on two shows: “Diff’rent Strokes,” where she was the housekeeper to three children, one of them played by Gary Coleman, and “The Facts of Life,” a spinoff in which she looked after a group of teenage girls at a private school. The series became known for tackling topical issues from a young woman’s perspective, among them eating disorders, sex, drugs and AIDS.

The actress once said she had begged the producers of “The Facts of Life” to allow her character to “lose her temper, yell at the kids. Let her be a human being.” They declined. “Mrs. G” remained the epitome of adult reason.

Rae was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards.

She left at the beginning of the eighth season, citing health problems, and was replaced by Cloris Rae Leachman for the rest of the show’s run.

Her first TV success came in the early 1960s with “Car 54, Where Are You?,” in which she played Sylvia Schnauser, the wife of an irascible police officer played by Al Lewis. She also appeared on “The Phil Silvers Show,” “The Defenders,” “Barney Miller,” “Good Times” and other shows. She played Molly the Mail Lady in early episodes of “Sesame Street.”

On Broadway, she received two Tony Award nominations: in 1966 for best featured actress in a musical for “Pickwick” and in 1969 for best actress in a play for “Morning, Noon and Night.”

She also recorded an album, “Songs I Taught My Mother: Silly, Sinful & Satiric Selections,” in 1955. Consisting mostly of show tunes, it poked fun at the Gabor sisters and Marlene Dietrich.

She was married from 1951 to 1975 to composer and sound editor John Strauss. In her autobiography, “The Facts of My Life,” Rae said both she and Strauss had struggled with alcoholism and that after 25 years of marriage he announced he was bisexual and wanted an open marriage. They divorced and she never remarried; Strauss died in 2011.

“I have wonderful friends,” she said in 2015. “I’m not just a lonely old lady.”

Along with her son Larry, she is survived by three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.