- Welcome back to another segment
of Behind the Scenes of "The Waltons."
Today I'm doing another segment of Ask Judy.
If you're enjoying all of these,
please do hit like and subscribe,
and feel free to put any of your comments or questions
in the comment section below.
This question is from James.
And he said, "I always imagined if you're acting in a TV
or movie production,
you're sitting around in a chair
with your name embroidered on the back
while waiting to do your scene.
I assume that's not actually the case.
If not in an immediate scene,
would you be in the wings watching the filming?"
Sometimes, but it's not necessary.
It depends on what's being filmed
and how interested I was in watching the filming.
It can not always be that interesting.
There's a lot of waiting around.
So although I might catch something here or there,
mostly when you weren't in a scene,
you tended to leave the set
or get out of the immediate filming area
because you could be in the way,
or if you're talking,
you can't talk because you disturb things.
So generally, you tended to leave the area.
He asked about maybe being in the on-school
or onset classroom.
And yes, when it was school, the school term
and I was still in school,
then yes, in between scenes,
I would go back to school and work on that
until I was being called again.
So yes, mostly whatever you're doing,
you're there waiting for the assistant director
to come and say, you're on, (chuckles)
or someone say, go change for this scene
or go get your makeup touched up or something.
So yeah, you pretty much hang out
and wait for when they next need you.
He had another question.
He said, "What happened if you were an integral part
of an episode that was being filmed that day,
but came down with a mean and violent
24-hour stomach intestinal bug early that morning?
Would filming be worked around your scene
until you are up to it,
a last-minute script revision,
or would you just trudge and suffer through your scene
as best possible?"
It, I guess really depended on just how sick you were.
It is a little bit of nobody else can do your job.
So if you could show up,
you tended to show up and just deal with it.
If it was something that you really, really couldn't,
then sometimes they would rearrange the shooting schedule,
and sometimes
depending on how critical what you were doing was,
then they would write you out of a scene or something.
But if it was really your storyline,
then it was hard to write you out of things.
So they would tend to try to shoot around you
until you were back.
But mostly, I remember people showing up
and just sucking it up and doing the work,
and hopefully we didn't make each other sick.
Okay, you have one more question here.
"After receiving my diploma and no longer in school,
did you have to report to set for every day of filming,
even if you had no part in that week's episode,
or you just had a small scene for that week, et cetera."
So, yeah, once I was out of school or if it was summer,
if I wasn't in the day's filming,
then I technically I was on hold that day.
So although I didn't have to come into the studio,
I had to be available in case one of these things happened
where somebody was sick or something happened
and they had to rearrange the shooting schedule,
they had unexpected weather,
or there was a problem with the set.
So those types of things might mean
that you could be called in at the last minute.
So you pretty much had to be on call,
even if you weren't there,
but you didn't have to come in and hang around just in case.
Hope that answers your questions.
Thanks so much.
This question is from Scott.
And he was saying about learning how things were filmed
and the first question was,
"How was winter filmed in the original "Homecoming"
compared to today?"
So in the "Homecoming" they did there,
we shot in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
So we were actually in the snow.
So we didn't have to deal with that,
but on "The Waltons,"
when we did things like The Best Christmas
or Children's Carol,
where it was supposed to be snowing,
but we were on the back lot of the studio,
then they did variations of fake snow.
In our case,
sometimes they used kind of a plastic sort of a substance
or some sort of a, just a fake substance
that looked like snow.
I think we had snowball fights occasionally.
So that's probably actual kind of ice, you know,
that they had,
that they could get enough there for us
to actually form something to throw.
Sometimes as Marcelle talked about
in the remake of the "Homecoming,"
they used like snow sheets.
So, you know, sheets of things that are laid down
that looked like snow
and then they might put some loose stuff on top
that you could actually see move.
So they have various different ways of creating that.
And then we never used any computer generated images
like CGI in "The Waltons,"
'cause that really didn't exist at that time.
So anything we saw, we had to create in person.
This question is from Teresa.
She said, "I have a question.
Did the cast fill in as extras on the show at times?
If so, how often, and on which episodes?"
No, we never did.
If we were ever in a scene,
we were in a scene as our own character.
Sometimes we were in the scene,
but we didn't say anything.
So we could sort of be the equivalent of background,
but we were there as our own characters.
So anytime you saw anybody
that you think might've looked like us,
but it wasn't being identified
that it was supposed to be us,
then it was somebody else who just bore a resemblance to us.
The next one is from Mark.
He said, "I have a question you might respond to
in your next Ask Judy," and here I am. (chuckles)
"I've heard that Ellen Corby adopted Jon Walmsley
as her grandson in real life.
I'm thinking legally, this can't be done,
but do you have any insight into this?"
No, she never legally adopted him.
And I think that was probably just a saying like,
oh, you know, I'm adopting you.
The way that we might say, I'm taking someone under my wing.
So she did that with several of us,
where she just looked out for us and sort of mentored us.
She did that with me too.
She gave me a lot of advice,
a lot of wonderful advice.
So I think it was probably similar with Jon,
and maybe they were fairly close,
you know, during the show and afterwards.
So she may have felt that it was like an honorary grandson.
Here I have something from Bob.
He said, "How early in the process
did the cast suspect that the series might run
as long as it did?"
I don't know that we ever thought beyond the next season.
We never knew.
Any season could have been our last.
So I think I felt pretty confident
that we were having a good run and our ratings were good,
but beyond that, I didn't think how long it might run,
and I'm not sure that anybody else did either.
He also asked, "Did filming the reunion episodes,
particularly the ones in the 90s feel different
from shooting the original series?
Was it easy to fall back into the character
and the relationships with fellow cast members?"
It was different after 10 years off,
but those relationships were always there
because we continued to be close
even when we weren't filming.
We saw each other, we got together, we talked,
we shared experiences, we did events together.
So there was still a lot of interaction.
So falling back into those characters
that we had done for 220 something episodes was pretty easy.
So it was like, we never stepped away.
What seemed different was we were older,
the storylines were different.
We were now grown up.
Sometimes the sets and aspects of that felt different.
So we were aware of things like that,
but not the relationships.
That sort of rolls into the next question from Paul,
who says, "When you weren't shooting,
did you spend your off time with your cast mates?"
Sometimes.
Yeah, I mean, not all the time,
because we spent so much time together filming
that sometimes it was like,
okay, that's enough,
I'd like to spend some time with my own family
and personal friends away from it.
But we did do publicity events together and sometimes,
yeah, we did just do things for fun together.
And then you asked, "Did you attend the same school?"
No. None of us attended the same public school.
So that didn't happen.
And then yes, I know that I did mention
the cruise with Mary at some point,
but was wondering about the others.
So yeah, Mary and I took that cruise,
and Mary and I visited each other different times
when we were shooting different things
or doing theater in different cities.
So she and I probably did more of that earlier on
than maybe I did with some of the other cast members,
but since then, a number of us have vacationed together,
or, you know, certainly spent time together.
And because of different events we've done,
sometimes we'll come in early or stay later
so that we can have time to just hang together
because we enjoy each other's company.
And this question from Becky who said,
"With so many young actors in the 70s,
succumbing to so many pitfalls,
why do you think your cast seemed to avoid all that?"
That's a good question.
I think it was a combination of things.
One of the things that I feel really contributed to that
was that we had each other.
There were a lot of us there
and we could be sort of a support system for each other
because we were all experiencing the same thing,
and we could talk things over with each other.
We could spend time with each other.
You always had somebody else
who could relate to what was happening,
or that you could bounce stuff off of.
I think for the most part,
we also had good foundation at home with our family
or with friends.
So we had people that were part of our support system,
people that helped look out for us.
And then even on the show,
the adults were very protective of us as well.
So I think there were probably times
where they went to bat for us
or helped us through different things.
So, you know, hard to say
why one person is more susceptible to those issues
than someone else.
I think also, because our show
was a little more grounded in its content
and there was no social media at the time, so that helped.
And people didn't go into a frenzy about "The Waltons."
We were sort of like their next door neighbors,
you know, they just felt like we were family.
So people didn't really treat us like we were superstars,
no matter how popular the show was.
So I don't think there was the real opportunity
for it to go to our heads, so to speak.
And I think that helped a lot as well.
We were always sort of treated like kids
and told to just do our job and not cause trouble.
So I think that we weren't built up around the set
by the powers that be,
and we weren't treated
like we were something really special.
And I think that's in a good way,
because then we did just feel like we were regular people
and interacted that way.
So I hope that answers your question
because that's about the best I can do with it.
And that's what I have for you for this segment of Ask Judy.
Thank you so much for putting your comments in for me
and your questions.
I will be back with another segment
of Behind the Scenes of "The Waltons" and more, Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.