• Faith: Judaism
• Career: Actress
• Birthday:  April 22, 1926
• Date of Death:  August 05, 2018

Charlotte Rae was a singer and character actress whose career spanned 60 years. She was known for her role as Edna Garrett in “Diff’rent Strokes” and its spinoff “The Facts of Life,” in which she had a starring role from 1979 to 1986. Rae received a Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Comedy in 1982. She also appeared in two “Facts of Life” TV films: “The Facts of Life Goes to Paris” and “The Facts of Life Reunion.” She voiced the character of Nanny in “101 Dalmatians: The Series” and Aunt Pristine Figg in “Tom and Jerry: The Movie.” She also appeared as Gammy Hart in “Girl Meets World.”

In 2015, Rae returned to film in “Ricki and the Flash,” with Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, and Rick Springfield. In 2015, she released her autobiography, The Facts of My Life, which was co-written with her son, Larry Strauss. Charlotte Rae Lubotsky was born in 1926 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Esther and Meyer Lubotsky. Rae was the second of three sisters, in between Miriam and Beverly. For the first ten years of her life, Rae’s family lived in an apartment built for them above her father’s Milwaukee tire store. In 1936, her parents bought a home for the family in nearby Shorewood, Wisconsin. She graduated from Shorewood High School in 1944. She attended Northwestern University, although she didn’t complete her studies.

While she was there, Rae met her friend, Cloris Leachman. Years later, Leachman succeeded Rae on “The Facts of Life” for the show’s final two seasons. At Northwestern, Rae also met several then-unknown producers and stars, including Charlton Heston, Paul Lynde, Agnes Nixon, Claude Akins, Gerald Freedman, and Sheldon Harnick. In a 2016 interview with Milwaukee Talks, Rae spoke about her decision to appear in only dramatic TV, saying, “When I started out, I wanted to be a serious actor; I never thought I’d get into comedy.” When a radio personality told Rae that her last name wouldn’t do, she dropped it, to her father’s disappointment. In 1954, Rae made her TV debut on episodes of “Look Up and Live” and “The United States Steel Hour,” which led to roles on other similar variety shows.

Her first significant success was on the sitcom “Car 54, Where Are You?,” in which she played Sylvia Schnauzer, the wife of Officer Leo Schnauzer, played by Al Lewis. She was nominated for an Emmy for her supporting role in “Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.” In 2009, Rae was screened, diagnosed early and became cancer-free of pancreatic cancer after six months of chemotherapy. However, in 2017, at 91 years old, she was diagnosed with bone cancer and died in 2018 at her home at 92 years old.

What religion was Charlotte Rae?

Charlotte Rae identified as Jewish, as both of her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Although she dropped her Jewish last name, Rae was proud of her Jewish faith. In her memoir, she wrote, “At 91, every day is a birthday.” Her advice, after 70 years of making art and entertainment, was this, “Savor the day and be good to yourself, love yourself, and then you can be good to others and be of service to others.”