Contemporary Christian Music

April 1983

You know the type. She was the kid with mousy brown hair who came to junior high school with the Bible locked under her arm. While the other kids were having food fights in the cafeteria, she and her only friend, the preacher's son, were off in a corner studying. In short, Lisa was the class nerd with a capital 'N'.

Mom sensed Lisa's alienation. She suggested her daughter sign up for a drama class. Maybe, Mom thought, acting might help Lisa overcome that shyness. The rest is entertainment history.

Not long after that first drama class, Lisa Whelchel was leaving Fort Worth for Tinseltown to take a job on a new television show. And seven years later, at 19, she has blossomed into one of TV's hottest young stars in NBC's Facts of life.

What triggered the transformation from "nerdy" little Fort Worth girl to beautiful Hollywood actress? And how has she maintained a successful TV career when so many actors and actresses are waiting on tables?

"It's Jesus," she says. "The Lord has opened all the doors for me. I don't take any credit for it. I've never had to go out looking for work." No, Lisa is not the latest Hollywood celebrity to find God. She's been a church-going Christian since she was a little girl. She started attending the little Baptist church down the road from her home because she wanted to go somewhere that she could dress up for. But at age 10, she made a personal commitment to Christ.

"It wasn't a lightning bolt kind of experience," she recalls. "It's been a steady, consistent, and undramatic process since then." Though her spiritual journey may have been undramatic, her career has been meteoric.

Lisa always dreamed of being an actress and going to Hollywood. But most of the potential roles she was looking at as a 12-year-old; child prostitutes, drug addicts, etc., were no images she felt comfortable with at all. She read in TV Guide that auditions were being held for The New Mickey Mouse Club. She wrote a letter and sent a picture, but the producers responsed that more than 6,000 youngsters had auditioned and the show had been cast. Lisa and her ever-encouraging Mom, Jenny French, didn't give up. They bombarded Disney with letters of reference from all the folks Lisa had ever worked with and performed with in Fort Worth. And Lisa wrote another letter explaining that she was a born-again Christain and that Walt Disney was one of the few companies producing the kind of positive and moral entertainment that she could believe in.

Disney invited her to fly out to the West Coast for an audition. She went in and sang, played the guitar, did her ventriloquism routine, and, apparently, bowled them over. Still at age 12, Lisa moved to Los Angeles. She credits the folks at Disney for helping her settle into a new lifestyle.

"It was really a great environment at Disney," she said. "They know how to treat kids. They brought me into it really easily. It wasn't like working with a freaked-out, weirded-out group of people. They're very family oriented."

Lisa's Mom stayed with her initially, but then decided her place was back home with her husband, Jimmy, and younger son, Cody. Lisa stayed with her grandmother and worked as one of the New Mousketeers for a year and a half.

The experience she gained on that show helped her to land the role of Blair, the rich, egotistical, blond, private school student in Facts of Life. The show is one of NBC's few successful comedy series and has stayed fairly high in their ratings all three years it has been on the air.

In addition to her starring role in the series, Lisa has made guest appearances on Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Diffrent Strokes and other shows. She's also made two TV movies, The Magician of Lublin and The Double McGuffin.

But life in Hollywood has not always been easy for the young Christian performer. In fact, after the first year with her series, she nearly decided to quit the business. At 16, Lisa had made few friends in L.A. She didn't have a church home. And then came the actors strike. Actually, the strike seemed like a blessing at first to Lisa. She went home to Fort Worth and, for six months, lived like a normal teenager -- going to school, going out to eat with friends, going to church.

When it came time to go back, Lisa wasn't at all sure if she wanted to. A side effect of the good fellowship and good home cooking -- some extra weight-added to her resentations. By Hollywood standards, Lisa knew she was overweight and would have to answer to her studio. But Lisa asked God for direction and felt led to return -- with a new attitude.

Back in L.A., Lisa began waking up an hour earlier everyday and reading the Bible and praying. "The Lord really honored that time I spent with Him," she recalls. "I realized that my relationship with the Lord is what made me most happy. If I lost 30 pounds, it would not make me happy. If I got married, it would not make me happy. Even if I got my own series, it would not make me happy. The only thing that made me happy is my relationship with the Lord. Now, I'm so glad I went through that trying time."

Lisa says she's not nearly as lonely anymore. She's got a close circle of friends. But, she complains, where are the guys? Surprisingly, she has no boyfriends. "No one asks me out," she says in disbelief. "I have a lot of male friends. I wish some of them would open their eyes."

And if it seems unlikely that a beautiful, successful young actress so much in the public eye can't find a date, try this on for size: In all the time Lisa has spent in Hollywod, she's never seen any drugs. "I don't enjoy parties," she explains, "so I don't see them there. The people I feel most comfortable with are Christians, so I don't see them there either.

Also somewhat surprising is the fact that Lisa has never felt compromised in her beliefs while working in Hollywood. Though she admits that there are few roles in TV or feature films that she would accept. "What's good about the roles I've been offered is that most are in television," she says. "In television they can't really get away with as much as they do in motion pictures." She made one film t hat she later regretted, not because of her role, but because of the overall content of the film. "But praise the Lord, it didn't go anywhere. It flopped. So I learned a lesson. It could have been a very expensive lesson, but it wasn't."

How does she determine whether a film or a role is right or not? "If someone was to come see the movie and be affected in a way that it became a stumbling block for them, I wouldn't do it," she explains. With that kind of standard, Hollywood could be a tough place to make a living. But Lisa still hopes to break into feature film roles. And she prefers comedies. "I just feel a lot more comfortable making people laugh." She says she would also feel at home in movies like Star Wars or E. T.

Lisa does not blame Hollywood alone for the quality and standards of the films that are being produced today. "The majority of people are being led by their carnal nature rather than the spirit," she maintains. "Unfortunately, Hollywood is producing what people want."

Lisa says that during the first year of Facts, she was a lot thinner and they tried to dress her in halter tops and other skimpy things. "I said,'Forget it! Really! Give me a break!' I'm an actress and if you want a 'good bod,' you can go and hire one.

Lisa is not preoccupied with the demand of her career. "When I lose weight," she says, "it will be for my own self, not TV." She doesn't worry about the doors suddenly closing on her. "There are so many other things I'd like to do.

"I don't think I'll be in this business much longer," she says. "The only reason I might is because of the platform it gives me. For some reason, people listen to what celebrities say. I don't know why because they're usually the most freakedout people. But if I can say something positive and introduce people to Jesus, then fine. But when the Lord is finished using me here, I'll move on to something else." With the future in mind, Lisa has been studying psychology and inner healing with a counselor from her church, the Vineyard, in Santa Monica, California. Her latest endeavor, though, is music. B.J. Thomas and other friends in contemporary Christian music are helping her record some demo tapes for a possible album. In addition, she's writing songs and incorporating her music into a ministry she'll take on the road this spring -- visiting campuses and youth groups and witnesssing with her testimony and her gospel sound.

"The whole reason I'm here is to help reach the young people that are so hungry," she says. "There are people that are called to the church. I'm called to the kids in the street." Last year, after taping of Facts was completed, Lisa went on the road for several weeks. This year, she plans to tour for four months.

The kids who come to see her, she says, come to see Blair Warner. But don't mistake Blair Warner for Lisa Whelchel. About all they have in common is blond hair and brown eyes. "She's into material things and I'm not," says Lisa. "I like jeans and tennis shoes and not wearing makeup, and Blair would never go out of the house like that." Lisa's expressed herself in the lyrics to a song she just wrote called "All Because of You."

  Looking at the screen that's staring back at me,
  Is that the person I'm supposed to  be?
  Many think they know me well, few who really do,
  Lord, let the whole world see
  That light that shines through me is you.

Lisa has never felt a sense of awe about the entertainment world. At the same time, she has never felt quite at home either. "I do feel out of place and uncomfortable in this business," she concedes. "Selfishly, I would rather not even be here. It's just really difficult when I'm with people and they take the Lord's name in vain every few minutes. They talk about the boyfriends they're living with. I just feel a lot more comfortable around my Christian friends."

But she doesn't feel it's the right time to leave the secular entertainment world for a ministry fulltime. "I don't think it would be anointed, and it would fall flat on the ground," she says. "I'm hoping God will lead me into the ministry. But if not, the important thing is that when I get to heaven, I was obedient-to Him. I know He's not going to say,'Oh, so you're an actress, huh? And you starred on Facts of Life for four years?' He's not going to say that. He'll probably say,'You know when you saw that little boy in the corner kind of despondent? And you went over and talked with him? That was real good.' I try to keep that in perspective. But it's hard in this business when priorities are so messed up.

Lisa wants to make sure that she's not seeking or accepting any kudos for being a Christian in Hollywood. "When people commend me for speaking out for the Lord and taking a stand and not compromising in my career, I want to say,'Hold on a minute. It's what's expected. It's what's required.' It's probably a lot tougher in other situations, like in college or a job as a secretary. I don't consider it to be real difficult to be a Christian just because I'm in show business. I go through the same things everybody goes through.

"It's not a problem for me to not go to parties, to not do drugs, to not fool around," she explains. "It's a problem for me not to talk about the people that just drive me crazy. 'That guy is such a jerk.' That's a problem. It's a problem for me not to embellish the truth and things like that.

"Being 20 and single is a problem. I have to deal with sexual desires. I would have to do that whether I was going to college or working in L.A."

Lisa says, "These things are not more difficult because I'm in show business. They're difficult because I'm human."

Lisa has been starring in the "The Facts of Life" for three years.

Lisa's 'Squeaky ' Songs
By Joseph Farah

Lisa Whelchel's spending much of her spare time in the studio recording these days, and it's all because of a schoolgirl crush she had on B.J. Thomas.

Lisa and her friends in Fort Worth would sometimes drive over to Arlington ehere B.J. lived and drive up and down the streets searching for his car, they knew he drove a Porsche. When they found it, they'd wait out front for hours for a glimpse of the singer. When he'd come out, they'd drive away quickly-embarrassed that he might see them.

Once she and her girlfriends even put their hair up under caps and disguised themselves as men as they hung around outside B.J.'s home. Then, one day about two years ago, Lisa and a girlfriend attended one of B.J.'s performances at an amusement park. The girls spent most of their time scheming about how they could get backstage and meet him.

They tried asking. That didn't work. So Lisa got the bright idea of climbing up onstage so her friend could take pictures of her. Naturally, the spectacle of a beautiful young TV star waving and signing autographs created quite a stir -- just as Lisa had calculated it would.

So B.J.'s manager came over to see what all the fuss was about. When he realized who Lisa was, he naturally asked if she'd like to come backstage.

Lisa played it really cool. "I stood there and said,'I don't know. I guess so. Why not?' By the time I got to meet B.J., my palms were sweaty. But I wiped them off and shook his hand."

B.J. asked if she sang and suggested she make some tapes. He even got Tim Archer to produce them for her. Since then, Lisa has made a number of contacts in the music business and has recorded several songs, including some of her own material.

"Almost all my friends are a result of that one crazy little incident and a silly crush," Lisa says with a smile. "It's funny how God can even use a little thing like that."

Lisa doesn't have a recording contract yet, but she will be sharing her music along with her testimony in a national tour this spring. Lisa lists Carmen, Joe English, and Amy Grant among some of her favorite artists, but she thinks she sounds most like Dolly Barton. "I have kind of a squeaky voice, she says.