Where Are The Diff'rent Strokes Cast Members Now?

This article includes mentions of addiction and suicide.

During the late 1970s, NBC was going through a serious struggle in ratings, but one of their few sitcom successes was "Diff'rent Strokes." Created by Jeff Harris and Bernie Kukoff, the series revolved around Arnold and Willis Jackson (Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges), two poor kids from Harlem who are adopted by rich widower Philip Drummond (Conrad Bain).

Over the course of eight seasons and two networks (the show made the jump to ABC for its final season), Arnold and Willis grew up alongside Drummond's daughter, Kimberly (Dana Plato), and when Drummond decided to remarry, the boys found themselves with a stepmother — Maggie McKinney (first played by Dixie Carter, then replaced by Mary Ann Mobley) — as well as a stepbrother, Sam McKinney, played by Danny Cooksey. The Drummond family also generally had a housekeeper, including Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae) and Pearl Gallagher (Mary Jo Catlett).

After 181 episodes, "Diff'rent Strokes" stopped moving the world, and the show came to a conclusion, but it remains in syndication and streaming to this day, maintaining a significant level of popularity even now. Here's what the cast of "Diff'rent Strokes" has been up to since the series went off the air in 1986.

Although he appeared in episodes of "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times" before being cast on "Diff'rent Strokes," it was definitely the role of Arnold Jackson that transformed Gary Coleman into a prime-time superstar. Because of his congenital kidney disease, he never grew taller than 4 feet 8 inches, but it didn't stop him from being a ratings powerhouse. In fact, he was so popular a presence on NBC at the time that the network also gave him his own animated series on Saturday mornings called — what else? — "The Gary Coleman Show." In short (no pun intended), he was the highest paid child actor on television throughout the late '70s and into the '80s.

After "Diff'rent Strokes" ended, however, Coleman's career began to flounder, and while he found work on a semi-regular basis, it was invariably either for one-off roles on TV series like "Married...with Children" and "Martin" or — far more often — cameos where he played himself, including films ranging from "S.F.W." and "Dirty Work" to "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" and "An American Carol." "Playing myself gets really old, really quick," Coleman told Las Vegas Sun in 1999. "It's either me, or an Arnold-type character saying, 'Whatchoo talkin' bout,' which I'm really trying to get away from."

Coleman, who suffered through considerable financial problems stemming from his parents' mishandling of his finances earlier in his career, died at age 42 after suffering a brain hemorrhage at his home in Santaquin, Utah, following a fall — just one of the many '80s stars who met tragically strange fates.

Although he was only three years older than Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges came into "Diff'rent Strokes" with a more formidable filmography than his onscreen sibling, having appeared in the groundbreaking miniseries "Roots" as well as serving as a series regular in the "Barney Miller" spinoff "Fish" for two seasons. As Willis Jackson, Arnold's older brother, Bridges' character was extremely cynical about the idea of living with a rich white man, but he quickly came to love Mr. Drummond and mellowed over the course of the series' run.

"Me and Gary Coleman were the only Black people on that show at that time, and we had no Black crew members," Bridges recalled to People in 2025. "Then I started speaking up and they finally got Black crew members, and we got a Black director, finally. And that was making us feel a lot better, because we had people around us who looked like us."

Bridges had already had brushes with the law even while "Diff'rent Strokes" was still on the air, having been fined in 1983 for carrying a concealed firearm, but things got more dire in the late '80s and early '90s, culminating with a 1992 arrest on suspicion of transporting narcotics for sale and possession of a loaded firearm. In 1993, however, Bridges kicked his drug addiction and has remained clean and sober ever since. In addition to a variety of reality-show appearances, he has done an arc on "The Young and the Restless," recurred on "Everybody Hates Chris," and has been a regular on the series "World's Dumbest..."

Born in 1923 in Alberta, Canada, Conrad Bain first stepped in front of the camera in the early 1950s with "Studio One in Hollywood" and continued to work in TV and film throughout the '50s and '60s while also doing theater, but his first significant mainstream success came in 1972, when he was cast as Dr. Arthur Harmon on the Norman Lear sitcom "Maude." After 121 episodes, the series came to a conclusion, at which point Bain stepped into the role of Philip Drummond, a rich businessman with a Manhattan penthouse and a strong moral compass.

After "Diff'rent Strokes" wrapped its run, Bain joined the cast of the George C. Scott sitcom "Mr. President," a series most famous for being part of the inaugural lineup of the Fox Network when it debuted in 1987. Alas, the show only lasted for a single season, after which Bain only appeared in a few more projects, one of which — the series finale of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" — found him reuniting with Gary Coleman to reprise their roles from "Diff'rent Strokes."

Bain died on January 14, 2013, at the age of 89. "He was a really good man," Todd Bridges told The Hollywood Reporter after Bain's death. "He really was like Mr. Drummond. Just an all-around nice guy. He treated me better than my own father treated me."

As Kimberly Drummond, the teenage daughter of Philip Drummond, Dana Plato may not have been the ratings draw that Gary Coleman was, but "Diff'rent Strokes" nonetheless made her into a star. Plato had been slowly building a filmography with roles in such movies as "Return to Boggy Creek" and "California Suite," but it was an appearance on "The Gong Show," of all places, that led to her casting on "Diff'rent Strokes." Plato remained a series regular through the sixth season, when her real-life pregnancy led to her dismissal because she no longer fit the wholesome image of the show. She did, however, continue to recur as Kimberly for the remainder of the series' run.

After "Diff'rent Strokes," Plato did a pictorial for Playboy that led to an appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show" in 1989 (via YouTube) but it didn't do a great deal to help Plato secure additional work as an actress. Although, in 1992 she had the dubious distinction of being one of the first celebrities to appear in a video game (the interactive "Night Trap"). Plato also worked on such B-movies as "Bikini Beach Race" and "Lethal Cowboy" as well as an erotic drama with the winking title of "Different Strokes: The Story of Jack & Jill...and Jill." Her past came back to haunt her most significantly in 1991, however, when she held up a Las Vegas video store with a pellet gun and was ultimately arrested as a result of the cashier's 911 call: "I've just been robbed by the girl who played Kimberly on 'Diff'rent Strokes'" (via People). Sadly, Dana Plato died on May 8, 1999 of a drug overdose, one of the many Hollywood stars you might not know have died. Although originally ruled accidental, Plato's death was ultimately classified as a suicide.

Before finding success with "Diff'rent Strokes," Charlotte Rae had already racked up more than two decades worth of work in TV and film, including recurring roles on "Car 54, Where Are You?" and as a cast member on "Sesame Street" where she played Molly the Mail Lady. As the Drummond family's wisecracking housekeeper Mrs. Garrett, however, Rae found herself a very enviable position without even realizing it. "'Diff'rent Strokes' was one of the few successful comedies we had on NBC, so I decided that would be the ideal choice as a vehicle for a spinoff, and Charlotte's character was a natural," former NBC president Fred Silverman told Entertainment Weekly. "She was established on the show, but her absence wouldn't mean the decline of the show." As such, Rae became a star of "The Facts of Life" which found Mrs. Garrett becoming a house mother at the Eastland School for Girls in Peekskill, New York.

At the beginning of "The Facts of Life" Season 8, Rae left the series. She was replaced by Cloris Leachman for the show's final two seasons, and began to work less in front of the camera. She started to carve out a career as a voice actor, contributing to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" (Adrienne Van Leydon) and "101 Dalmatians: The Series" (Nanny). That said, she also did arcs on "Sisters" and "ER," guested on shows like "The King of Queens" and "Girl Meets World," and made memorable appearances in such films as "Nowhere," "You Don't Mess With the Zohan," and "Ricki and the Flash." Rae died at her home in Los Angeles on August 5, 2018 at age 92.

Mary Jo Catlett had already made a name for herself in the theater before she ever stepped in front of the camera, most notably for having originated the role of Ernestina in "Hello, Dolly" in 1964. In the mid-1970s, however, she made her TV debut on an episode of "The Bob Newhart Show," after which followed roles on "The Waltons," "Kojak," "M*A*S*H," and other series. Her first series-regular role, however, was playing the Drummond family's housekeeper Pearl Gallagher. Catlett joined the cast after the departure of Nedra Volz, who — as Mrs. Garrett's replacement, Adelaide Brubaker — was only ever credited as a guest star because of a clause in Charlotte Rae's contract that allowed her to come back if "The Facts of Life" didn't last.

Catlett remained with "Diff'rent Strokes" until the series came to a conclusion in 1986, after which she returned to the theater. She participated in performances of "Beauty and the Beast," "The Music Man," and "The Wedding Singer." She has also guest-starred in a plethora of TV series, including everything from "ALF" to "Rizzoli & Isles," and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for her work as Mary Finnegan on "General Hospital."

Although she's inarguably a recognizable face after all of these years, she's even more familiar for her voice. Since 1999, she has played Mrs. Puff on "SpongeBob SquarePants," and has continued to reprise the role for all of the feature films in the franchise, up to and including 2025's "The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants."

Danny Cooksey had barely begun his acting career when he was cast as Sam McKinney, with his only prior credit having been a single episode of "The Dukes of Hazzard," but by securing the role of Maggie McKinney's son (and Mr. Drummond's soon-to-be stepson), he became the new cute kid on the block, adding an injection of youth to "Diff'rent Strokes" as the other kids on the show were growing up. 

After the conclusion of "Diff'rent Strokes," Cooksey didn't hesitate to continue his career as a child actor, stepping immediately into another sitcom role — playing Kevin Cavanaugh on CBS's "The Cavanaughs" for two seasons — while also starting to work as a voice actor on such animated series as "Pound Puppies," "The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley," "Tiny Toons," and "Pepper Ann." As the early '90s beckoned, however, he scored two of the most iconic live-action roles of his career; playing young John Connor's friend "Tim" in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" and Bobby Budnick on the Nickelodeon sitcom "Salute Your Shorts", while also fronting the Interscope-signed band Bad4Good. "There were certain times that everything sort of overlapped," Cooksey recalled to The Ringer in 2021. "So I remember there was a period of time where I would go in the morning to do 'Salute Your Shorts,' leave at lunchtime to do 'Tiny Toons,' back from that over to the set of 'Terminator 2,' and then I would record vocals and make a record at night after everything was over, and then repeat that the next day. It was a wild time." Still acting and performing, Cooksey is also married, has two children, and is even a grandfather.

After spending the first five seasons of "Diff'rent Strokes" occasionally flirting with the idea that Philip Drummond might actually find a steady girlfriend, i.e. one who would appear in more than one episode, the series' producers finally decided to let Mr. Drummond settle down in Season 6 by setting him up with a woman who had one of the most '80s professions ever: an aerobics instructor. The woman in question was Maggie McKinney, played by Dixie Carter, an actress who had started out first in theater and then in soap operas like "The Edge of Night" and "The Doctors" before making the jump to prime-time sitcoms such as "On Our Own," "Out of the Blue," and "Filthy Rich." Carter left the series at the end of Season 7, at which point she secured a role that would define the remainder of her career: becoming a cast member on "Designing Women."

After 163 episodes and seven seasons, "Designing Women" came to a close, and Carter worked as a guest star on a few series and did a couple of TV movies before securing her next series-regular role: Randi King on the legal drama "Family Law," which lasted from 1999-2002. Some of the highlights of her later career include a memorable guest spot on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" and a recurring role as Gloria Hodge on "Desperate Housewives."

Carter was married three times, but she's perhaps best remembered for her third and final marriage, to fellow actor Hal Holbrook, to whom she was married until her death in 2010 from complications of endometrial cancer.

When she stepped in to replace Dixie Carter as Maggie Drummond in 1985, Mary Ann Mobley became the last person to join the "Diff'rent Strokes" cast as a series regular, but she had already been well-known to the general public for more than two and a half decades, having been crowned Miss America in 1959. That achievement led to a five-year contract with MGM, at which point she began to build an acting career, including two films with Elvis Presley in 1965: "Girl Happy" and "Harum Scarum."

Although Mobley was a regular face on TV throughout the '60s, '70s, and '80s, including guest spots on series ranging from "Mission: Impossible" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." to "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island," "Diff'rent Strokes" was the only series-regular role of her career. In addition to acting, Mobley was also active in philanthropy and charity work, including Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation.

Mobley slowed down her acting career in the '90s, making only a handful of TV appearances, although one of them found her squaring off against Dixie Carter on "Designing Women," which made for a fun meta joke for "Diff'rent Strokes" fans. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009, Mobley succumbed to the disease at age 77 on December 9, 2014, in Beverly Hills, California.

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