Janet Jackson Was 'Like a Little Sister' to Good Times Costar BernNadette Stanis: 'Sweet as Pie'

BernNadette Stanis forged an immediate and indelible bond with 11-year-old Janet Jackson when the future pop superstar made her TV debut in 1977 as Penny on Good Times.

"It was wonderful when she came because I [got] a little sister," remembers Stanis, 69, who played Thelma Evans, the middle child and only daughter of Florida and James Evans, who were played, respectively, by TV legends Esther Rolle and John Amos. "That's how I felt towards her. She was like a little sister to me. She said to me, when she was an adult, she told me, 'Thank you.'"

Jackson made her first appearance on the sitcom during its fifth season as the daughter of an abusive mother. In one memorable and, at the time, shocking scene, Penny's biological mom (played by Chip Fields, mother of Kim Fields) approached her with a hot iron as Penny begged her mother not to burn her.

M. Caulfield/WireImage Stanis (left) and Jackson at the 2006 BET Awards.

"The world had never seen anything like that," Stanis says. "To this very day, when I see that scene, I get goosebumps. I just love the way little Janet handled that. And when she did that 'No, mommy. No, mommy. No, mommy,' I said, 'Oh babe, don't say that.' My tears. I can't watch that scene."

On the show, Penny ended up getting adopted by the Evanses' neighbor Willona Wood (Ja'Net DuBois) and developed a puppy crush on Thelma's brother J.J. (Jimmie Walker).

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At the time, Jackson, who would go on to land other co-starring roles on the TV series Diff'rent Strokes and Fame, was best known as the baby sister of Michael Jackson and his brothers. The guys had already racked up a string of hits beginning in 1969 as The Jackson 5 and, later, as The Jacksons.

"One of the things that Norman [Lear, who developed Good Times] said about her character, he said, 'I didn't hire her because she was just a Jackson,'" Stanis says. "In other words, 'I hired her because she was a Jackson, but I really hired her because she was a good actress.'"

CBS/Getty Jackson (left) and Ja'Net DuBois on Good Times in 1977.

Stanis, who was also a big hit with viewers (to her young male fans in the '70s, she was the Black Farrah Fawcett), remembers being impressed by Janet's work ethic. "She was a delight to work with," she says of the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer. "She was disciplined. She knew her lines. She did her little schoolwork. She was sweet as pie, still sweet as pie. But I'm just saying, to come from a family that was so wonderful and big in the world and to have such a humble little spirit, it's amazing. It was amazing."

A Brooklyn native who studied at Juilliard, Stanis says her working relationship with Janet led to a personal relationship with both her co-star and her famous family.

"We met all of the Jacksons and they all were like that. My mother and myself and my daughters, we would go over to their mom's house, and we would play Uno. They were just regular, wonderful people," she shares. "I love Mrs. Jackson."

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After the series ended in 1979, Stanis continued to work steadily in television, film and stage, appearing on shows like The Cosby Show and Girlfriends. Since 2022, she's played Nee Nee Duncan on BET's crime-drama series The Family Business.

Though people recognize her now for her current role, to fans of Good Times, both the ones who watched it back in the day and younger ones who've discovered it on Peacock, where all six seasons currently stream, she'll always be Thelma Evans.

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"I was doing plays for years between Good Times and Nee Nee Duncan," Stanis says. "And every play that I did, every character that I did, my audience would come to me, and I would sign their book or whatever they gave me, and I signed 'BernNadette Stanis.' They would say, 'Put "Thelma" down there, girl. Put 'Thelma' down there!' So every time I signed my name, I had to put 'Thelma.'"