Blair Warner

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Blair Warner was a fictional character on the sitcom The Facts of Life. Blair was played by Lisa Whelchel. Her age throughout the series was roughly 14 to 23 (an episode in the 1985-1986 season centered around her 21st birthday).

At the beginning of the series, Blair was played as very rebellious. She was seen smoking cigarettes and had many boyfriends, unlike a lot of the other girls she shared a house with. When the show was retooled in 1980, all instances of Blair's rebellion were dropped and she was rewritten as an unashamedly spoiled "Daddy's girl," whose business alone could have kept Bloomingdale's and Neiman Marcus afloat. In the 1980s, sales figures for the Neiman Marcus chain of department stores skyrocketed, thanks to, in part, the publicity Blair gave the store.

Blair was also very vain, and truly believed that she was perfect in every way. To her credit, Blair got good grades, won school awards, was crowned Harvest Queen three years running, and even convinced a boy to move from Switzerland to attend school near her (when asked about it, Blair dryly remarked, "I've done it before.") Blair's delusions of grandeur were usually played for laughs when Natalie, Tootie or Jo would make sarcastic remarks about her "beauty", "perfect" persona or her "naturally blond hair". Blair felt she was more important than other, "regular" people because she was the heiress to her father's multi-million dollar business, Warner Textile Mills. Any crisis at Eastland would usually prompt a suggested solution from Blair, preceded by her catch phrase: "I just had another one of my brilliant ideas!"

Blair's parents (played by soap opera actors Nicolas Coster and Marj Dusay) were divorced, and although she didn't usually show it, Blair wished that she had a nuclear family like all of her friends. Later in the series, her mother remarried (for the fourth time) and gave birth to a baby girl. Blair had misgivings about her mother's pregnancy but fell in love with the baby as soon as she laid eyes on it.

Another secret Blair kept from her friends was that her cousin Geri had cerebral palsy. She was not embarrassed of her cousin, but rather jealous of her, since Blair was used to being the center of attention. Mrs. Garrett told Blair not to lash out against Geri because of her jealousy, and Blair humbly repented by joining Geri onstage at an impromptu comedy show Geri threw at the Eastland Academy.

Blair attended Eastland, and upon graduating in 1983, attended nearby Langley College. She worked with Mrs. Garrett at Edna's Edibles and, later, Over Our Heads. In the final episode of the series, Blair purchases a financially troubled Eastland Academy and turns it into a co-educational school.

Throughout most of the series, Blair's chief foil was Jo Polniaczek, a tomboyish student who also attended Eastland Academy (on scholarship, as opposed to Blair's wealth and privilege). The two made no secret about their dislike for one another – Jo found Blair spoiled and snobbish, while Blair thought Jo was classless and crude. However, more than once Blair stuck up for and stood by Jo in her time of need (and vice versa), and eventually the two developed a much friendlier relationship.