- I'm back with another segment
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons".
This time I'm talking about the episode
from Season 7, "The Empty Nest",
the episode that paid tribute to Will Geer,
who we lost between Season 6 and Season 7.
It was 1941, six months after Grandpa passed.
In real life Will Geer passed away between Season 6
and Season 7, coming as a complete shock to all of us.
We didn't know he was ill.
It was quite, quite a devastating loss.
So this episode, fortunately, they had time to -
for Rod Peterson and Claire Whitaker to write
this beautiful two-part episode
that paid tribute to Will Geer and Grandpa
and gave us all an opportunity in our own way
as characters and as cast members
to pay tribute to him on camera.
It's also mentioned in this episode that Mrs. Brimmer
has passed away.
Actress Nora Marlowe also, we lost her in real life.
So I thought it was very fitting that she was also mentioned
because she was a wonderful part
of the series for so many seasons.
And that was also quite a blow to us.
Tough beginning of a new season.
Grandpa was supposed to have died while planting seedlings
up on the mountain and tradition was that every year
on his birthday, we would go up onto the mountain.
Members of the family are thinking
that that is what we will do once again
as Grandpa's birthday is coming up and we're
going to go up and celebrate, but Grandma isn't ready
for that and says, emphatically, "No, we're not doing that."
So each member of the family in their own way
is struggling with the loss of our grandfather in our life.
There are so many wonderful moments and wonderful scenes.
You know, it wasn't all heavy.
We had some wonderful light moments
as Corabeth decides to turn the pool room
at Godsey's store into a tea room.
And the only customers she has are the Baldwin sisters,
but she tries so hard to bring more culture and gentility
to Walton's Mountain, much to the chagrin of Ike,
who was very tolerant of all of Corabeth's
various different ventures to try to bring this culture
and art and whatnot that she so craves,
bring it to Walton's Mountain.
It is occasionally appreciated, but mostly completely lost
on the majority of people in the community.
Corabeth and Ike had a lot of squabbles
and she spent most of her time calling him Mr. Godsey.
And in this moment when she realizes she has pushed him
too far, there's just a beautiful sort of makeup moment
between the two of them, when she calls him 'Dear'
and you get to see the actual legitimate affection
between these two characters that as different as they are,
there is a lot of genuine affection on both sides.
With the passing of Mrs. Brimmer,
the boarding house that she ran is now vacant,
And we introduce a new character, Zuleika Dunbar,
who has now taken over the boarding house
and is going to be letting rooms.
Jim Bob has acquired an old jukebox which doesn't work.
And in his mechanical fashion he gets it working again
and ultimately convinces Ms. Dunbar
that it belongs in her boarding house.
I loved the subplot about the jukebox
and Jim Bob fixing it.
Here he is in the barn, he finally gets it working
or sort of working but mostly he gets
Chance mooing and Rover squawking about it.
And Elizabeth teasing him endlessly.
Ben decides to grow mustache,
but it's not growing very well.
And John teases him about it throughout the episode
as do other members of the family.
And ultimately he decides he doesn't need a mustache.
And I think it was a smart choice.
I love this scene where Mary Ellen's
in a hurry and she needs to feed John Curtis
and Grandma basically says, "I'll do it."
I just think it's so sweet.
I always love to watch the interaction
of John Curtis with the various different family members,
because at that age they're not acting.
So everything you see from a toddler that age
is responding to the actual energy that they
are getting off of the actors they're working with.
So I think it says a lot about the energy
that we all had for real working with
the young twins who played John Curtis.
Real things happened in scenes sometimes
and we just had to work with them.
In this scene in the apartment,
I'm putting things away in the closet.
As you can see, John Curtis in his crib decides to stand up.
When I turn around, I can guarantee you.
I was surprised to see him standing up in that crib.
And my thought would have been, oh my goodness.
I don't want him to decide to try and get out and fall out.
So my reaction is completely, it's ad-libbed
but it is very much in dealing with my concern for the child
and they let it happen because that was real life.
So sometimes I've been asked about how much of things
happening did they keep or what was an accident
and would they let that happen?
This would have been letting it roll
because that was a natural parent reaction
to a child being in potential harm.
I was fascinated by the fact
that Ellen played piano in this episode.
Clearly she actually could play and read music.
What was more surprising to me was as much
as she struggled with speech, here you actually hear her
able to sing as she is playing.
Wonderful to see that somehow her speech did not translate
to an inability to then sing.
I loved this beautiful date that Olivia and John
go on and how beautiful Michael looked all done up
in period fashion with her new dress and John in his suit.
Just a wonderful moment for John and Olivia.
John faces some conflict for himself in this episode.
Matt Sarver, a big shot from Richmond comes.
He has contracts with the military to build barracks.
He needs lumber. John can't fulfill that size deal.
Matt calls him two-bit.
This really sets John thinking about his life
and how we can get ahead and how he can deal
with financial stress and all of that.
He's ultimately prompted to form a co-op
with the other lumbermen on the mountain
where they collectively can fulfill this large contract.
It's a turning point for him.
And along the way, he goes through a lot of stress
and thinking and figuring what is the life that he wants.
And what's most important to him.
This was also the episode that introduced
the new family wagon, the woody.
As John and Olivia, John's made this
big deal in the city to supply all this lumber.
And so they get a new, a new vehicle and I think
it's hysterical at one point, Olivia says,
"Well, do I get to drive?"
And he says, "Yeah, you can drive now."
He gets out and she takes off practically
before he closed the door.
Just not something I would normally expect on the Waltons
and from Olivia, but fun.
Here you'll recognize actress, Peggy Rae,
who later played Aunt Rose.
In this episode, she plays the landlady
when Erin and Mary Ellen decide to get a small apartment
in town because Mary Ellen's in school.
And Erin has a job in town.
Fun once again to see an actress who did a fabulous job
and later returns and we get to have them
on a more regular basis.
Another case of a returning actress,
Here, the role of Mrs Sarver is played by Jay MacIntosh,
who you might remember from the Dust Bowl cousins
as cousin Cora.
She looks a little different, all dolled up doesn't she?
And then we have the most beautiful closing segment
in this episode where we are on the top of the mountain
to celebrate Grandpa's birthday and theoretically
spontaneously, each member of the family,
the kids all have something to say to Grandpa
- Grandpa, there's a lot of you in John Curtis.
He loves to hold his hands out to all kinds of people,
just like you did.
- And when it came to Mary Ellen in another
completely spontaneous moment, as I talk about
how John Curtis likes to reach out to people,
that was not scripted either.
Whether it was Michael or Marshall Reed,
whichever one of the twins it was when I held him
out like that and was talking, he just spontaneously
reached out and how special and perfect was that.
And then we paid that final tribute to Will Geer
and said goodbye to Grandpa Walton.
I hope you enjoyed this segment.
Ha. You know, tough every time we lost somebody
or said goodbye to them, but I'm so glad
that we had this opportunity to pay tribute to him
and that all of you got a chance to share that
with us as actors and with us as characters.
Thanks for watching.