- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons."
Today, it's kind of an "Ask Judy."
I'm gonna cover a few different things, a few questions,
a few upcoming things going on in my life
and just a little bit of an overall catch up.
So I hope you enjoy.
First off, regarding the Walton's 50th,
at this point, there's no official news.
We don't have anything specifically planned for the 50th.
There's no big gathering.
We're not doing anything at the museum with all of the cast.
I know a number of the cast are going to be in Missouri
the beginning of October for the Fall Pickers Festival
or something like that - Market.
I'm not able to make it.
I have a longstanding trip
that was planned months and months ago
before I knew this event was happening.
So I'm sorry to miss seeing all of you
and spending some time with my Walton castmates,
but Mary and Jon and Eric and Kami
and Rachel Longaker,
and Leslie Winston are all going to be there.
And I've posted,
there's going to be a photo
that they sent out to me
and to David that we signed as part of a big group photo.
So I know I posted it on my Facebook page
and I think a few others did too.
So if you can make it,
you can get the rest of the cast to sign it there.
Or if you just wanna order it in advance or afterwards,
you can do that.
And everyone who's there will also be signing copies of it.
So that's a 50th news update.
There's also going to be something coming up next year
which is not really our 50th,
but maybe part of still the airing of the 50th. (laughs)
The first season.
There's gonna be an event up in Canada.
For those of you who are in the Northeast,
it'll be somewhere, I think like Niagara on the lake.
So we'll be posting more information about that.
It's part of a, sort of a tour
starting in Toronto
and going around parts of Ontario, Canada.
So some of the Walton cast, me and Kami, and Eric and Mary,
will all be participating in some events
for the first three or four days of that tour group.
And then we'll be having a public event
I believe on the last day that we're up there.
And then the tour will continue on for a few other cities.
So we'll be posting more information about that.
So these are all kind of 50th things that are happening.
In other news on my front, as I mentioned,
I won't be at the Fall Pickers event
because I'm going away on a trip.
I recently mentioned that my husband and I
celebrated our 20th anniversary.
So we had in conjunction with the 20th,
planned a trip to France.
So I will be gone for the first couple of weeks of October.
So if I've posted,
if I've got segments like this together in advance,
there might be some segments that still go live
during the time I'm gone, or there might not be.
It just depends on what kind of ability I have
to function from out of the country,
but I can pretty much guarantee
I won't be available to be answering comments
during those first couple of weeks.
So if you see an episode and you have a comment,
I don't know how -
if I'll have a chance to get back
to those two weeks worth of comments.
I get hundreds of comments a day
so it takes me a fair bit to stay up on 'em.
So don't take it personally,
if you don't hear from me
in the first couple weeks of October
and I will try and pick things back up then, once I'm back.
So I'm gonna keep repeating this message
so people don't go, where did she go?
And why isn't she posting?
So first two weeks of October,
Judy is on vacation.
Another thing coming up in the near future
is I'm just wrapping up a Christmas CD.
I think I've mentioned that a couple times.
I took a little bit of video
when I was in the recording studio.
So I'll be sharing some little snippets of that with you.
It was just, I took my camera and I threw it on a tripod.
So I don't know. (laughs)
I haven't even looked back at it yet
but I may share a little bit of that.
And then I will again be sending,
putting out information about the CD when it's available.
Most likely around the beginning of November,
it'll start being available.
If you want a copy,
if you wanna order a copy for someone for Christmas,
they'll probably be available digitally,
as well as if you want hard copies.
Hard copies of any of my stuff, photos, CDs,
are always available on my website, JudyNorton.com.
And anything that's ordered through my website,
I do sign personally.
So if you order a picture or a CD
and you want it to "Mary", let me know.
Otherwise, I just sign it to whoever ordered it.
So if you want it for somebody else as a gift,
you'd have to let me know that in the special instructions.
So stay tuned for more information about my Christmas CD.
I am so excited about it
because I've wanted to do a Christmas CD forever.
And just during COVID I went, you know what?
This is the time.
I have time to do this.
So it's been a couple of years in the making,
but we're getting close!
And I absolutely love Christmas,
love Christmas songs
so I just picked a lot of my favorites to share.
So more information on that will also be forthcoming.
As you know, I recently spent some time,
sat down with Rachel Longaker, which was so lovely.
We haven't had a chance to really sit down
and talk as adults, particularly.
So that was a real treat,
getting to know her a little bit more
as both adults now.
So there were some things that we talked about
that I didn't have time to add into the segment with her.
So I thought I'd add a few other little things.
We talked about
interesting actor things
like when you're short and you have to stand on apple boxes
to fix the height differential in a scene.
So we talked about things like that.
We talked about different things that happened
during casting and things like that.
So I'm gonna share with you
what we talked about
on that particular topic.
- I remember that.
No, I think when I was first cast, we were,
I mean, Kami was always taller than I was.
- Yeah, I mean-
- Yeah, she wasn't a lot taller initially.
- Right, right, exactly.
- Which is probably good
because otherwise they may have said,
well it doesn't look right together.
- Exactly.
- People don't realize all the reasons we lose jobs.
- Yeah, totally, totally.
No, I remember on the show,
I always had to be put up on an apple box.
- Ah. - You know.
For my close up or my behind the camera.
I always have to be put up on an apple box.
- For people who dunno what an apple box is.
- Yes. - It's like a plywood box.
And they come in different heights
from a quarter to a half to a full.
- Hmm hmm.
- And they'll put actors on them
so that they can get more height proximity
so that the camera isn't shooting from way low up
onto somebody's close up.
Or if two people are together,
there isn't so much height difference
that the camera can't frame tightly.
- Exactly.
- It would happen to me working with some of the taller,
like Richard Gilliland who played Jonesy.
- Yeah. - Was like over six foot.
And when I was wearing sneakers
and we were standing up next to each other,
I came up to his shoulder.
- Right.
- So I would frequently, if we were standing,
they'd put me up on apple box.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So yes, us shorter people tend
to get elevated a lot. (laughing)
- Hmm hmm, hmm hmm.
- And the taller people end up hunching down
or leaning against things
to kind of bring that height together.
- Right.
Did you used to go watch the dailies?
Because I think I only got invited once or twice
and I was just like (exclaims)!
- No, we were never invited.
I think once or twice, same thing.
I was invited to see dailies, but more or less,
I always heard that they didn't want actors.
They didn't like to have actors there
because for one thing,
the director liked to be able to comment freely about stuff.
- I'm sure. - And I'm sure choices.
And if they would were to say,
well, that wasn't a very good take or-
- Exactly. - A little overacted there.
I mean, whatever they might say,
they wanted the security and the confidence of that,
not going outside the room.
- Sure. - Which I appreciate.
And I think, I used to hear that
there was the fear that if actors went to dailies,
they would change things in their performance
because after seeing themselves,
they might get ideas that they should do things differently.
So I don't know what it was
but I think there was also just the time factor
because they did it during lunch
and it was our lunch hour
and I think they didn't wanna have to pay to feed us.
- Totally.
- And could you imagine?
All of the cast sitting in dailies.
We didn't get to go to table reads either.
They just had the adult cast.
We were never invited to table reads.
- That's right. - Yeah.
So I think again, especially when we were under age,
that it just wasn't practical. - Sure.
- And then I think, again,
it was probably too much to consider having 11 people
at a table read.
You had to get through it.
You didn't have a lot of time.
You had to get through it.
Didn't need...
I get it!
I think our notes would've been valid for our characters.
- Sure.
- But they may not have always kept
the whole perspective of what.
- Oh, yeah. - The bigger picture was.
- Oh, yeah.
- I would not have thought that at the time.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- But looking back, I recognized that
and think it was the right decision on their part.
- Yeah.
- I would've liked to have perhaps been engaged more
in some of the casting. - Sure.
- A couple times I was brought in,
there was only two episodes I particularly remember
when we cast GW Haines originally.
- Hmm hmm. - I was there.
I was brought in to do some of those callbacks, I think.
And then on, I think the episode, "The Medal,"
when there's a soldier who comes
to present a medal of honor
or something like that to Curt posthumously.
And they brought me in for those callbacks.
- Hmm hmm, hmm hmm.
- But otherwise, it either didn't work out with timing
or casting or they figured, didn't matter.
But I was really quite surprised
that they didn't bring me in
when they cast Tom as Curt, that they-
- Oh my gosh.
- That they cast my husband and they never-
- Yeah.
- They never brought us into the room together.
- That is strange.
That is strange. - Yeah.
- Yeah.
Luckily, it all worked out great.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Absolutely, so, I mean,
again, they did a great job
and they probably felt like
they knew my character well enough
and they had enough of a sense
of how the dynamics would play, so.
And as an actor, it's kind of like,
sometimes you work with,
and I got along great with Tom, so.
- Yeah.
- But sometimes you do end up in situations
where you don't have a connection
with an actor you're working with
and you just have to use your imagination, you know?
You have to make it look.
And I've heard all kinds of stories
about films that I've watched
where it's like, oh, those two didn't get along at all.
And you'd never know it looking at the screen.
- Absolutely. - You know.
- Absolutely. - They had great.
That's what actors do.
They create on screen chemistry
even if they don't feel it. (laughs)
Thank you for joining me for this segment
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons."
A little bit of a catch up,
a little more with Rachel.
I will be back with more
"Behind the Scenes of The Waltons"
and more "Ask Judy."
Thanks for watching.