- Welcome back to "Behind the Scenes of the Waltons.
Today I'm going to be speaking
with special guest Deborah White,
who starred in the episodes,
The Shivaree and The Loss as young Olivia.
Please welcome my special guest, Deborah White.
I just want to welcome you,
this is Debbie White.
And or do you go by Deb, Debbie or Deborah?
- Well, professionally it's Deborah White.
Yeah, but you can call me Deb, Debbie, whatever.
But the professional name is Deborah White
or Deborah White Type.
(both laughing)
- Well, thank you for coming to join me
to talk with the Walton fans
and people who have loved and watched
and of course saw the two episodes
you did "The Shivaree" and "The Loss".
So as I had said that I was gonna do my best
to see if you would come,
have an opportunity to come and talk with me.
And here you are, so thank you.
- My great pleasure, thank you!
- Yeah, I had told people that we got pretty close
while we were- - We did, we did.
You and I and Kami.
We got, I loved you guys, you guys are great.
And when they brought me back,
I was beyond the moon, you know, it's like, oh my God
I'm gonna see the kids again, it's great.
And I loved the whole experience.
It was my, actually, my first job in Hollywood
and my best, I mean, my most favorite was my first,
it was like the Waltons, I'm gonna be on the Waltons.
And I was already, you know, I looked very young.
I'm, was always looked very young at,
I'm in, I don't mind saying I'm in my seventies now
but the seventies aren't so bad.
I'll tell you, they're not bad.
You get to not give a damn about a lot of stuff.
And I've had a couple of careers, happily, happily, happily.
But I was 30 something when I did the Waltons.
I mean, I was already an adult,
even though I was playing somebody much younger.
So I came onto the set as an adult.
And yet you kids were so much fun.
I just could not stop being fascinated by all of you.
And as I'd said, I'd love the show.
But I love talking to you.
You were really interesting and serious, very serious.
I remember you being very serious.
- True. - Yeah.
- Yeah well, as a teenager, I think I was still
at the point of so wanting people to treat me as an adult.
And I was just on that cusp of not quite, I wasn't 18 yet.
I wasn't 21 yet.
And I felt like being in an adult world,
I always felt that push to be treated like an adult
to be respected as an adult.
And I think that I, that played into a lot of it.
- I agree with you.
And the fact that I was an adult
and I was playing so young,
kind of made it like I could play with you, you know,
and still be an adult at the same time and could talk to you
as an adult because you were, you had a lot of adult in you.
You had a lot of grown up in you,
you were not a silly child by any means, no.
- I think we grow up fast in the industry and-
- I guess so. - From a very early age.
So- - Yeah.
Can I tell you about my first day there?
- Absolutely.
- Do you want anything like that?
- Yes, please, please,
wherever we go is good. - Okay.
Well, first of all, the fact that I've got,
that I booked the Waltons out of the box was beyond me.
And it was a really lovely part.
And I got to play with everybody in the show.
And I knew I'd watched every episode
and I remembered going to the set.
And you know this, of course,
the set was behind the parking lot at Warner Brothers.
So you would park in the parking lot
and then you would make a left and go through these trees.
And there was Walton's Mountain.
It was just there.
And I think it was one of the Hollywood Hills
in the back was actually Walton's Mountain
but there was the exterior right there.
And I started to cry.
I mean, I was like, I'd already worked in New York.
I knew I was gonna be an actress.
I came from a theatrical family
and I'd done a lot of commercials and theater in New York,
but I knew that I would do well in television
and I wanted to go out to LA and to end up on the Waltons
is the very first show on a beautiful part was astonishing.
And then to actually see the house, you know,
and then you go, oh wait, it's not really a house
it's just the front of a house.
And you turn around and behind you was, I mean,
this is just Hollywood fun stuff.
Was a western village from something else.
You know, it was just the front of a house.
And oh, what I'm trying to say is that it was magic.
It was magic to me from day one.
Whether it was real or not real, it was magic.
And I never really had that experience again
on any other show.
And I worked a lot of shows and I did a bunch of pilots
and I had such a good time on The Waltons
and nothing ever quite came up to that experience.
- Wow. - The joy of that cast.
- That's so nice to hear.
I've had other people say that it was one
of their favorite jobs to do.
I know we always tried to make people feel welcome
and comfortable - You did.
- And I know we had a very,
our relationship together was also good that I think-
- Yeah. - That helped.
So there wasn't conflict amongst the cast.
And these people don't speak to each other.
And yeah, we were like family.
There were times I stopped speaking to some of them
but the next week it was fine.
You made up like family. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the director, I forget who directed the episode
but he was lovely.
Everybody was just lovely to me.
And then I, then we go inside and we work inside
and the studio and there's the kitchen and you know,
I'm trying to like hide, you know,
that I am like so happy to be here.
I'm ready whenever you are, CB, let's just work,
you know but. - Now you got to,
in The Shivaree, you got to work with Bruce Davison.
- Oh yes. - I adore.
- Yeah. - Yeah, great guy.
Actually, Bruce and I had worked together before
and I don't remember on what
and Richard and I had worked together before
because he and I had both understudied a Broadway show
that lasted one night. - Oh, guess you didn't go on.
- Nope, but we were both so serious
and so good that we would rehearse.
We would, we rehearsed, we knew all our lines.
We were ready to go on and the show closed.
Oh, I understudied Bernadette Peters
and he understudied Don Scardino
who actually also ended up being a really good director.
Wonderful actor, and a good director.
Yeah, it's funny how things just like, you know, change.
- Yeah, well then, I just,
'cause I just recently watched both of your episodes
because I knew we were gonna be talking.
- Oh how sweet. - And it was,
it always brings back wonderful memories
when I watched the episodes and particularly, you know
watching you and remembering, you know,
that and then feeling, it's like, how, why,
how did we kinda lose contact with each other?
- I know, I know. - Those are the kind of things
life just sort of happens and, you know.
- You guys made me laugh a lot.
I have a very personal story to tell.
I don't know if I should have,
I've never actually told anyone but I might as well tell you
and the rest of the world at this point.
So by the time I did the second episode
I was divorcing my husband.
And he was not a good person to be married to.
And we had had a fight one night,
and Ellen actually lived up the block from me
in West Hollywood, I was on Vista Grande
and she was someplace, she was in within walking distance.
And I would, you know, we'd wave at each other, whatever.
But I walked over to her house in tears.
Because you know, in my craziness at that moment,
she was grandma and I was going to grandma and I was,
you know, really only going to Ellen's house.
And she was wonderful to me, she was wonderful.
She beckoned me in and we sat down and she, you know,
told, asked me what was wrong and I said, I hate my husband,
I'm gonna leave, he's the most awful person, you know.
And she listened to me and she,
I'm just, was an actress that had been on the show
a few times and she didn't go into the granny roll
because that wasn't really her, but she, I mean,
it was her but she was so much more than that.
She just, we were just woman to woman for about an hour.
We sat and she talked me down off the wall.
- Wow. - And I went home
and then I divorced my husband.
But I never got a chance to thank her for that.
I mean, she just, she just talked me down.
She talked me down from a state of craziness.
Not that I was gonna do anything or anything
I was just, it, you know, I was young
and I was ready to leave my husband
and I think she'd had a marriage that failed
or something like that, but oh, she was wonderful.
And I remember the room we sat in, I mean, anyway.
- Yeah. - That's what the Walton's
will do to you, it'll make everybody on the show
feel like family. - Yeah.
People say that and we feel that way
about the people who have been loyal to the show
for now 50 years since we started.
- I know, isn't that amazing?
50 years. - I really appreciate Debbie
coming by to spend some time with us
and to share some of her memories of the Waltons
and a bit about her life pre, during, and post the Waltons.
I'll be back with more behind the scenes of the Waltons
and more Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.