Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show, where she told hosts Ross Matthews and Drew Barrymore about her kiss with co-star George Clooney from the ‘80s hit series. Lisa revealed that she forgot they shared and unintentionally denied the moment during an interview.
She recalled saying they “didn’t play girlfriend-boyfriend on the show”; hence, she could not tell what it was “like to kiss George Clooney. They said, ‘Yeah, you did.’ I said, ‘If I kissed George Clooney, I think I would remember it.’ And they rolled the tape.”
Lisa Whelchel on kissing George Clooney
In her defense, Lisa’s character— Blair Warner, was only pretending to be a girlfriend to Clooney’s George Burnett. “But that is not any commentary on his kissing ability, I’m sure,” she noted. On a serious note, Barrymore said Facts Of Life was a “blueprint that made life feel better. I saw myself with you guys because you were raising yourselves, you were raising each other.”
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The show host was particularly touched by Lisa’s co-actress, Charlotte Rae, who played Edna Garrett. “What I was learning was to be a strong, independent female who could take care of themselves and value female friendship and know that there was someone there who was watching out for them — Mrs. Garrett. That was my life,” she gushed.
Like Clooney, Lisa was light-hearted and often engaged in pranks on set as she proclaimed herself a “practical joker” on the daytime program. She narrated how she tricked everyone into believing Eve Plumb truly hit her during a fight scene rehearsal. “There was a fistfight, and we were rehearsing it, and she accidentally hit me,” she said.
Lisa showed up early to set the following day and “asked the makeup people to put a black eye to make it look like she really hit me. Then they had to scramble to figure out what they were gonna do. Just silly,” she joked. She also admitted to putting on a fake cast at Disneyland “and made them scramble to figure out what they were gonna do.”