LOS ANGELES, Aug 6: A spokesman for Charlotte Rae, who played a wise and caring housemother to a brood of teenage girls on the long-running sitcom “The Facts of Life,” says the actress has died. She was 92.

Spokesman Harlan Boll said Rae died Sunday at her Los Angeles home. A cause of death was not immediately provided.

Rae originated the character of Edna Garrett in 1978 during the first season of NBC’s comedy “Diff’rent Strokes,” then took Mrs. Garrett with her for the spinoff “The Facts of Life,” which premiered the following season. Initially set at a girls’ boarding school, that NBC series ran for nine seasons, though Rae left after its seventh year.

Her many stage roles include that of Mammy Yokum, created by her for the 1956 Broadway musical “Li’l Abner.”

 
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