Tootie Ramsey
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Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey was a fictional character on the sitcom The Facts of Life, which ran from 1979 to 1988. She was played by Kim Fields. Fields portrayed Tootie from the ages of 10 to 19.
Tootie was the youngest girl out of the main characters on the program, and the only African American. She attended the fictional Eastland Academy for most of the show's run. Tootie's most-remembered attributes were her penchant for rollerskates (at first used by Facts of Life producers to mask Fields' short stature), her gossipy nature, and her braces. In real life, Kim Fields had to wear braces for three years, finally having them removed in 1984. A lot of Tootie's gossip got her and her friends in trouble, and she was noted for her catch phrase, "We are in trou-ble!"
Tootie was involved in many very special storylines. For example, Tootie befriended a boy named Fred who insisted that she only associate with black people, in an attempt to realize "her true roots." In another episode, Tootie was chosen by a photographer to model for newspaper advertisements but was instead lured into kiddie porn and was saved by Mrs. Garrett at the very last minute. During a trip to New York City, Tootie was almost strong-armed into prostitution before Mrs. Garrett found her and took her home. A fan of singer Jermaine Jackson, Tootie rushed the security to get into his dressing room so that she could give a papier-mâché replica of his head to him, only to find it submerged in a bathtub of water and ruined, emotionally crushing her (his bodyguards had done it in fear that it was a bomb). In another episode, Tootie's aunt married a white man, and her best friend Natalie had trouble comprehending the race issue.
Tootie helped Mrs. Garrett with her bakery, Edna's Edibles, after school and then worked full-time at the malt shop Over Our Heads after she graduated from high school.
In the 2001 television movie The Facts of Life Reunion, Tootie had become a successful talk show host under her legal first name, and asked people not to call her "Tootie" anymore.
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