7 Quick Facts for Actress Lisa Whelchel

There’s not much Lisa Whelchel hasn’t been willing to tackle. The former star of The Facts of Life and Survivor Season 25 is now host of the MeTV network show Collector’s Call, which introduces viewers to the biggest collectors of pop-culture memorabilia in the country. But the journey for the 58-year old mother of three and grandmother of two hasn’t always been smooth. Here she shares some of those hard-earned lessons.

The past can serve a purpose.

Whelchel calls herself a “less-is-more” person, where “too much stuff — even just in the atmosphere — feels overwhelming.” But she appreciates the collectors she meets on Collector’s Call. "They are passionate about something, and it’s almost always tied to something in their childhood. A special feeling, or a relationship or a moment they want to keep alive — they didn’t want to let it go and resign it to their childhood.”

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Lisa Whelchel played Blair Warner on the 1980s TV show, "The Facts of Life."

Embassy Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Whelchel was thrilled that The Facts of Life was chosen for the third installment of Norman Lear’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience in December 2021. “My initial reaction was one of incredible honor that they would cast Jennifer Aniston as Blair and the other amazing actors and actresses that they had for the episode. And then when I met them all, not really taking into consideration that they would have grown up on the show, I was geeking out about them — but they were geeking out about us. It was utterly delightful.” 

Opportunity will knock again.

Having stepped away from show business decades ago, Whelchel hadn’t planned on a return, but then Survivor [2012] happened. “I hadn’t decided on it. I fell into it,” she says, still sounding a little shocked about it. “I had transitioned from show business to being a stay-at-home mom. When my kids got to junior high, I started writing books, traveling and speaking.” When her “Women of Faith” speaking tour got canceled, she found her calendar filled with free time. “The former president of Women of Faith, what she always taught me — whenever we get to a fork in the road we hadn’t anticipated — is to ask ‘What does this make possible?’ ” When I asked myself this question, I realized I’d always longed to be on Survivor, but I’d never been able to — either because my kids were too little or I was always booked. I made an audition tape. After Survivor, I got a lot of offers to do other show business things. And so I thought: OK, OK. Let’s follow this trail and see how far it goes.”