Mindy Cohn is what we call here at PopWrapped “’80s iconic gold.”
The world fell in love with her as sassy Natalie Greene on The Facts of Life for nine amazing seasons.
Mindy has continued to have a successful career in both acting and voice-over work in Hollywood. From 2002-2006, she became the voice of Velma Dinkley in the series What’s New Scooby Doo? That role earned her a daytime Emmy nomination in 2002. Mindy has continued to lend her voice as Velma in filming over 25 Scooby Doo videos.
In 2008, she was cast in 8 episodes of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a part that allowed her to cross paths with Molly Ringwald, who was her castmate on season 1 of Facts. The first season was overrun with girls at Eastland School, and Molly was one of four girls cut from the show before season 2 began.
Mindy also shared in the media that “Molly had just come off a run of Annie on Broadway, and she was on her way up. She’ll be the first to tell you that getting off the Facts of Life was the best thing that ever happened to her career.”
Today, Mindy is very involved with Heifer International’s “Beyond Hunger.” They strive to help end world hunger, along with so many other celebrities like Elton John, Paul McCartney, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer, and Nora Jones, just to name a few.
Mindy invites you to visit www.heifer.org today and find out more information to get involved and start helping out.
Last night (Sept. 11), I got to meet Mindy at a storytelling comedy event called “Dont Tell My Mother.” It was the back to school edition.
Mindy is right at home on the stage. She had the audience right where she wanted them. She led off with, “I’m a first timer so go easy on me. Most of you know me from a show I did with four girls and Mrs. Garrett…” Before she could finish her sentence, the crowd roared.
Mindy said, “I think I will get that response until I’m 90.”
She went on to tell us her personal story of how “Mindy” and “Natalie” both lost their virginity in the same year. Needless to say, the crowd was very interested.
“On a break from filming Facts, I was cast in the film The Boy Who Could Fly. Filming started up Vancouver in 1985. I was 18 years old. I decided that on the last night of filming before I flew back to Los Angeles, I was going to lose it. I had a beautiful suite, and a close friend of mine, a handsome sexy guy was filming a tv show in Vancouver at the same time. He was going to be the one. It was all planned out. So, he came over that night; things were really happening.”
In reference to the show, Mindy shared, “I was a thumb sucker until I was 11. With that, you tend to learn certain skills.” (Cue audience laughter.) “But don’t tell my mother.” (More laughs.) “So anyway, several times just before I would let him penetrate me I would stop him. Gave him the worst case of blue balls ever. But through more awkwardness and anxiety, we worked up to the moment. I said ‘Wait, call the front desk and get the time.’ He said, ‘Mindy, what?’ He then said, ‘Would you rather just wait until we are back in LA? It’s okay, I promise.’ I said, ‘No, just call and get the time,’ so he did. Official time stamp at 4:55 am that morning, Mindy Cohn lost her virginity.” The crowd erupted with cheers.
Mindy told us, “You know, people told me I would hate it, it would hurt–it didn’t. I loved it. So we did it again.” More cheers from the crowd. “And again!”
Coming back to filming Facts of Life that season, Mindy shared that
she was self-confident and energized. “It was season 8 and the ground-breaking show we had covered many topics from abortion, to suicide, death of a parent, runaways, but none of the girls were having sex and their characters all had steady boyfriends.” The writers approached Lisa Whelchel, who played Blair Warner, on the show about her character losing her virginity. She let them know that her Christian faith was not going to let her be a part of the episode. When Mindy heard about this, she went right to the writers and said, “Where do I sign?”
The episode was called “The First Time,” and it aired later that year. Much like Mindy, Natalie lost her virginity to her on-set boyfriend Snake and boy, did it feel great! Meeting Mindy was amazing; she was a part of my childhood and she could not have been more kind and gracious to me. A class act, and that’s a fact.
Please follow Mindy on all of her latest adventures on her social media sites: Twitter and Instagram.
Credit: moviepilot.com
Facts of Life cast [Credit: usspost.com]
Lisa Whelchel and Mindy Cohn
[Credit: People]
PopWrapped’s Gary Lane with Mindy Cohn [Credit: Gary Lane]Author
