- Welcome back to another segment
of Behind the Scenes with the Waltons.
Today I'm going to be finishing up my time
that I spent recently with David Harper.
So once again, here's David Harper.
Well, I mean, you had some interest in
between the airplane stuff and then building the car
and having to drive the car and the motorcycle.
And then what about the peacock?
What about Rover?
How was that to deal with?
- Oh, well, you know, I remember they had
that as a storyline for a couple episodes,
but it wasn't horrible, I think the thing clawed me once.
I think more about the episode where I had to wear one
of the girls hand me downs with the frilly collar
or the famous episode where you dye my hair.
- Pink. Yeah.
- And then the episode where Jim-Bob gets the tattoo
and he is mortified that Mom's gonna find out,
and he hears that if you put that piece of liver on there.
Well, Mary was the one in the scene with me in that,
and by the time we were done filming that,
I mean, in the beginning it was cold.
It was like, "Ooh, gross".
By the time we were done, it was warm and stinky and gooey.
And so that episode, the dyeing of my hair, the wearing
of the frilly shirt and okay, there was, what was it?
The guinea pig Porthos? - Yeah.
- The Peacock was Rover, right?
- Yeah. - I think, Okay.
Yeah, that's not much memory of that.
I remember the episode where I find out I have a twin
that died at birth.
- Yeah, that was quite an episode.
I mean, you had some, I love the scene between you
and you had some great scenes with Michael
in The Motorcycle Race you did.
And in that one, of course the.
- You know, I've forgotten about 'em.
But when I go back and watch all of them,
I had some great scenes with Ralph and Michael and Richard.
I can watch them now and go, you know,
that's really cool I got to do that.
I think I told you the story
about the episode where my character runs away
and this guy driving down the road gives me a ride.
- And that was the one where Porthos.
- Oh my God, that's Geoffrey Lewis.
If I ever run into Juliette Lewis
I'm gonna tell her "I was in a scene with your dad".
You know, some of the guest stars we had I don't remember
'cause I wasn't in scenes with them.
I mean, I remember when Merle Haggard was on the set
that was a big deal 'cause even I knew who.
The first day that John Ritter showed up on the set,
I was running around going "Tex Ritter's son".
'cause I grew up in Texas.
Everybody knows who Tex Ritter is.
You know, if you grow up not knowing who Tex Ritter is,
you lose your Texas citizenship.
So, you know.
So it's old enough to remember who some people were,
simply because they were on shows that I watched growing up.
That was always a treat. - Yeah.
- Even to this day, I'll see somebody in another show
and I'm like, "Oh God, you know what?
I got to work with that guy".
That's really cool for me.
I think the crew loved me because I was always on time.
Hardly ever did anybody wait for me.
And "That Harper kid, he's all right".
- Yeah, I know. Some of us went
through our rebellious stages. I know I did, but.
- Oh, well, Michael became notorious
and remember when we'd be on the back lot
and we get ready to drive to the commissary for lunch,
Jon, we're always waiting on Jon. I mean.
- We still always wait on Jon.
- I know, and you know, once we saw him coming,
it's like, "Oh no he's gonna stop and talk to that person".
You know and sure enough, so.
But yeah. - Jon runs on Jon time.
- You know, the great thing for me,
I learned professionalism and courtesy
at a very early age. - Mm.
- That's the most notable thing I took away from it.
We got lax you know, after we were not gonna get canceled.
I remember towards the end, we'd go into the makeup room
in the morning and somebody would ask,
"How'd we do in the ratings?"
And Eric would say something like,
"Oh, we did horrible,
but at least we beat Celebrity Bowling".
(both laughing)
- That must have been in late seasons.
- When Will died, the dynamics changed.
And then when they brought Bob Wightman on,
who was a genuinely nice guy, I think we
weren't supportive enough like we could have been.
But you know, the show had just, it was like soda
that had lost its fizz.
Now since we're talking about people that I love seeing,
I loved Richard Gilliland.
I mean, in my mind he was on at least two seasons.
I don't think he was,
it was just the last season. - Yeah.
- And when he died, just recently
I was surprised to learn he was married to Jean Smart.
- Yeah. They were married after, 'cause he went to work
on Designing Women, playing Annie Potts' boyfriend.
- Oh okay.
- And I think that's where he met Jean.
And then they were married, so that was
after the time he spent on our show.
But yeah, no, I adored Richard and I loved working with him.
- Yeah. - He did a few episodes
in season nine and then he did two
or three of the reunion specials right after.
- Right, right. - We finished
and then, yeah, and then that was it.
- Well, you know, like Robert Woods,
I thought he had been on longer
than he actually was. - Yeah.
- You know, I think Tom actually beat both of them out
for screen time. - Definitely, yeah.
- But yeah, and they were just great people.
- One of my favorite scenes of yours is
after you've been really mean to Corabeth
and then you helped fix her tire.
And you have a just a really honest lovely scene together
that I just. - I'm glad you mentioned that.
- People comment on that all the time.
- I'm glad you remember that
'cause I'd forgotten about that.
I actually had to have a really nice scene
with Ronnie Claire.
I don't remember any, I probably had some nice scenes
with Joe, but yeah, the writers spread the wealth
and, you know, it's fun to go back and watch 'em.
Some of them I haven't seen in their entirety.
- Yeah. - I can watch it now
and say this is a genuinely good show.
- Yeah. I'm still, there's so many I still haven't seen
and I'm trying to make my way through 'em.
But I mean, one of the scenes that, you know,
Day of Infamy, when we find out Curt's been killed
at Pearl Harbor.
I just remember, because your character was the one
that brought the telegram.
- Oh yeah. We had a great scene there, huh?
- Yeah. And I just remember there was something
about you, of all the people in the family,
who might have brought me that telegram,
you bringing it to me just broke my heart, you know.
It was just something about,
'cause we had scenes together, but not very often.
And we were in group scenes, but you and I one on one,
and it wasn't even like that was a one on one scene together
but it was just a moment that we shared
and for some reason it just really touched me.
- Oh gosh yeah, and since we're talking about it,
memories are coming back up.
Yeah, I have the first five seasons on DVD.
Vicky Choudhury got those for me.
And you know, I've been watching the show on Hallmark
and they actually show it from beginning of series to end.
And I think they've cycled through it almost three times
in the last two years.
They just showed The Foundling today.
- Wow. - And it's like, okay.
So they're getting complete showings
not just on Inspiration, but Hallmark
and sometimes you can hardly turn the channel
without running into it.
I make this joke that we're like a piece of gum
that you could never entirely scrape
off the bottom of your shoe.
- Well, our viewers and our very loyal fans are very glad
that we're still here 50 years later.
And I mean, is there something,
because I hear through my channel
like how much people love you and loved your character
and how much they have wanted to hear from you, so.
Is there a particular something you'd like to say
to all these people who have kept the show alive
for all these 50 years?
- Oh, well, you know, words of gratitude are not enough.
But we're sure thankful that the fans are still with us,
new generations of fans.
It's really kind of astonishing
and there's a few other shows that I could think of,
but not too many, where people have such love of it
and that's a tribute to the fans and their values.
Yeah, I love my anonymity.
I don't, as you well know, Judy,
I don't do a lot of public stuff
and to get me to go out and do something's
kinda like pulling a tooth from an alligator,
once in a while, just to get outta my comfort zone,
it's a lot of fun.
People, I think, have heard
that I'm generally a very private person
'cause that's been printed in magazines for years.
- Yeah. And you've chosen to live a very simple, quiet life.
- You could almost call it monastic.
You know, I live in this little farming town
in southern California.
But yeah, I'm so happy I moved here. It's really nice.
It's very simple. - What fills your days?
What do you do with yourself?
- Oh, well, I'm an avid war gamer.
Not the stuff that the kids play.
I play stuff that's played at the war colleges.
Everybody knows that I'm a big historian.
My favorite subject is the American Civil War
but I have extensive knowledge of World War II and stuff.
And so I've been reading a lot.
I finally got back to reading.
And over the last couple years,
I mean at the moment I'm kind of disciplined,
but for the last couple years
I was never reading anything less than three books at once.
If you're ever herning for, you know,
"What should we get David?", send me bookmarks.
I can always use more bookmarks, so I like to read,
I love movies just like everybody else does.
And I have a lot of interests,
I'm addicted to information gathering.
- Did you find, during the course of the series,
because of your love of history,
on the series we covered a lot of episodes.
- Oh yeah.
- About real events in history. So how was that for you?
- Well, I learned a lot about American history,
cultural history. I mean, there's that episode
with Beulah Bondi as Martha Corinne.
She's sitting on the couch
and she's telling her us about her husband.
And she mentioned Jubal Early.
Now I'm probably the only person in the cast
that knew who Jubal Early was
from studying Civil War and stuff, so.
Yeah, I couldn't catalog everything.
We did cover some important topics of the 30s,
abdication of Edward, the Hindenburg,
of course then we fast forwarded to Pearl Harbor.
We got to listen to FDR Fireside Chats.
Occasionally they would have, I guess it was, what was it?
Fibber McGee and Molly. - Yeah.
- Some of those old radio shows.
- Or George and Burn, Burns and Allen, you know.
- Yeah. Yeah, I have a good life.
I really do. - Good.
- And this is fun. I had a good time.
I'm glad to. - Thank you.
Well, then we'll do it again sometime.
It's been my pleasure to have David Harper join me
for this little casual chit chat,
catch-up, all of the above.
So I hope you've enjoyed it.
I'll be back with more
Behind the Scenes of the Waltons and more Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.