Conrad Bain of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ fame dead at 89

Conrad Bain, who played Philip Drummond, a wealthy white widower who adopts two young African-American brothers in the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, died on Monday. He was 89 years old.

Bain died in Livermore, California, and died of natural causes, according to his daughter.

Born in Lethbridge, Alberta in 1923, Bain studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts before serving in the Canadian Army during the Second World War. Bain later picked up his studies in New York at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which he attended with the likes of Don Rickles and Charles Durning.

Prior to finding fame on the NBC sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, which ran from 1978 until 1985, Bain honed his skills on the live stage, performing with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and in the 1956 revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.

He also appeared in Woody Allen’s 1971 film Bananas and the 1970 comedy Lovers and Other Strangers.

Prior to taking the role of Drummond, Bain had a run as Dr. Arthur Harmon on the CBS comedy Maude.

Diff’rent Strokes launched Bain, along with his co-stars, Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges and Dana Plato, into stardom, but the series is also remembered for the grim fates that befell the show’s child stars. Plato, who played Drummond’s daughter Kimberly, died of an overdose in 1999 at age 34 after well-publicized brushes with the law, while Coleman, who died in 2010 at age 42, faced financial difficulties later in life. Bridges also made headlines due to his crack cocaine addiction and scrapes with the law.