The Facts of Life, Zapped!
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"The Facts of Life actually started out as an episode on Diff’rent Strokes. That episode was a pilot and from there it went on to become its own series."
While Felice Schachter's time as a star was brief, it is difficult to imagine what the early 80s would have been like without her. Between The Facts of Life (1979-81) and Zapped! (1982), she only had two major roles in that decade, but they were two roles that defined the era.
Baby Actor
Born in NYC on November 17, 1963 to real estate developer Alex Schachter and theatre manager Suzanne Schachter, Felice made her debut just six months later. Her mother was the founder of Suzelle Enterprises, so Felice wasn't even a year old when she became a magazine cover model for American Baby, and began starring in commercials for Baby Alive, Downy, Ivory Snow and Pampers.
At eight years old, Felice went on to study ballet under George Balachine at the School of Ballet, and then joining the NYC Ballet company. Here she featured in productions of Sleeping Beauty, The Taming of the Shrew and The Nutcracker. Before featuring in television and film, Felice appeared in two off-Broadway plays in the late 70s, Time Again, and The Innocents.
Felice's break into television came with her casting as Nancy Olson on Diff'rent Strokes (1979). Felice's episode, "The Girls School," would be a backdoor pilot. A backdoor pilot is when a popular series runs an episode to test interest in a possible spin-off, seeing if the audience takes to the new characters and if they can carry a show of their own. In the case of "The Girls School," the backdoor pilot plan was a success, and that same year, The Facts of Life would premiere on NBC.
Interesting note: Nancy Olson was actually Felice's second time being cast on Diff'rent Strokes, actually having won the role of series regular Kimberly before being recast. "I not only auditioned but I actually had the part. I did the presentation for NBC but they decided that they wanted someone who was more wholesome. So the role went to Dana Plato."
Although The Facts of Life would be the defining role of Felice's career, many viewers forget that she only appeared on nineteen of more than two hundred episodes. Nancy Olson was a main character for the first season, covering thirteen episodes, before being made a recurring character in the second and third seasons, featuring as a guest in one episode of the eighth season, and being absent from the show for the rest of the series' run.
While Felice's run on Facts of Life would end prematurely, she looks back on the experience fondly. "We had a lot fun together. We all went to school together. I remember that we all used to go around the lot on roller skates. Even though Tootie was the one who wore them on the show, we all used to skate around the lot on them."
After The Facts of Life, Felice Schachter was cast in the movie Zapped! (1982) with Scott Baio and Willie Aames. The movie follows a high school student granted psychic powers through a science experiment, with Schachter as Bernadette, the class president at Ralph Waldo Emerso High School.
Zapped! has gone on to become something of a cornball classic. The film currently holds a Rotten Tomatoes rating of just seven percent. A particularly rough review mused "It's hard to believe the writers of Zapped! are even old enough to hold a pen." The movie would be ribbed by a story on parody news website The Onion with the headline "Zapped! Sweeps Oscars!" While the movie may not always be remembered for all the right reasons, it is remembered, and that's a better legacy than most movies enjoy.
After the Eighties
Felice Schachter's acting credits after the 1980s have been somewhat sparse, appearing on two episodes of JAG (1995) and an episode of High Tide (1997). Throughout most of the 2000s she worked behind the camera as a production coordinator on projects like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2001) and 30 Years to Life (2001), where she also had a brief cameo.
"I was a production coordinator, which meant that I coordinated everything to make the production run smoothly. I made sure the actual film is ordered, all of the actors have their scripts, pretty much everything you could think of from A-Z."
Her main job these days is actually in education, working as a special education teacher, especially working with children living with autism. She remembers her time in film and television fondly, but has ultimately found her true calling as a teacher.
"My job now is to work with children with special needs, especially children with autism. I use Applied Behavioral Analysis to help these children learn social and language skills."
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