Conrad Bain, who played Phillip Drummond on Diff'rent Strokes has died at the age of 89.

(L to R) Actors Gary Coleman, Conrad Bain and Todd Bridges at the 2003 TV Land Awards
(L to R) Actors Gary Coleman, Conrad Bain and Todd Bridges at the 2003 TV Land Awards (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Bain died on Monday of natural causes in his hometown of Livermore, California.

His family did not offer a cause of death but remembered him fondly. "He was an amazing person. He was a lot like Mr. Drummond, but much more interesting in real life. He was an amazing father," his  daughter Jennifer told TMZ.

Drummond is survived by three sons and a daughter.

Before "Diff'rent Strokes," Bain played conservative neighbor Dr. Arthur Harmon on the feminist sitcom "Maude." His most recent role was on the CBS drama Unforgettable playing a priest in 2011.

Bain didn't mind being overshadowed by  TV sons Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges. He praised them as natural talents without egos.

But "Diff'rent Strokes" is remembered mostly for its child stars' adult troubles.

Coleman, who died in 2010, had financial and legal problems in addition to continuing ill health from the kidney disease that stunted his growth and required transplants. Bridges and Dana Plato, who played Bain's teenage daughter, both had arrest records and drug problems, and Plato died of an overdose in 1999 at age 34.

Bain said in interviews later that he struggled to talk about his TV children's troubled lives because of his love for them. After Bridges started to put his drug troubles behind him in the early 1990s, he told Jet magazine that Bain had become like a real father to him.

 



The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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