NEW YORK: Conrad Bain, a veteran stage and film actor who became a star in middle age as the kind white adoptive father of two young African-American brothers in the TV sitcom “Diff'rent Strokes”, has died.

Bain died on Monday of natural causes in his hometown of Livermore, California, according to his daughter, Jennifer Bain. He was 89.

The show that made him famous debuted on NBC in 1978, an era when television comedies tackled relevant social issues. “Diff'rent Strokes” touched on serious themes, but was known better as a family comedy that drew most of its laughs from its standout child actor, Gary Coleman.

Bain played wealthy Manhattan widower Philip Drummond, who promised his dying housekeeper he would raise her sons, played by Coleman and Todd Bridges. Race and class relations became topics on the show as much as the typical trials of growing up.

But “Diff'rent Strokes” is remembered mostly for its child stars’ troubles in real life as grown-ups.

Coleman, who died in 2010, had financial and legal problems in addition to continuing ill-health from a kidney disease that stunted his growth and required transplants. —AP