Julie Piekarski

[In 2015, recalling her reaction when her character Sue Ann got cut from The Facts of Life (1979)]I'm not going to say I was actually shocked, but I was surprised. "Blindsided" might be the right word for how I felt, though, because I did feel like Sue Ann was getting more opportunities and more storylines where I was a main character. I will say that, if there had been any sort of rumor going around the set like, "Oh, I hear they're gonna cut a couple of the girls," then I probably would've thought, "Well, probably not me." But there was no hush-hush rumor going around. It was just, "We're cutting the cast."...When Felice Schachter, Julie Anne Haddock, and I came back (for the Season Eight episode "The Little Chill"), oh my gosh, that was so much fun. It was a blast. But, you know, looking back, that's another one of those episodes where my character kind of took the lead, and it provided a little bit of closure for me, I think, because it was, like, "Okay, they still like to use Sue Ann." It was great to come back and see everyone and to see how much we'd all changed...But the whole thing felt very much like we were picking up where we left off, in terms of the kindness and the friendships that had been there. Show less «