- Welcome back to another episode
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons, Ask Judy,"
where I take your questions and do my best to answer them.
If you are enjoying all of these Waltons tidbits,
please Like and subscribe.
All right, here we go with another question.
This one is from Dave.
Dave wanted to know if I ever got starstruck.
Yes.
I mean, I have people, I've admired their work
and watched their work,
and so sometimes when I meet certain people,
yeah, I get totally starstruck.
Because I worked in television and not film,
I haven't met as many, like, major
A-list celebrities and stars and stuff,
so sometimes when I meet people like that,
yeah, I'm pretty tongue-tied.
I remember meeting Harrison Ford
and just being tongue-tied and babbling.
I either get completely tongue-tied
and don't know what to say or I babble,
either one of which (laughs) are really smooth.
I remember another circumstance that happened one time.
We did a CBS 50th Anniversary Special.
CBS did a two-hour special
where they gathered together stars
from the first 50 years of CBS shows,
and it was really a who's who.
I mean, people like Lucille Ball
and Alfred Hitchcock and Walter Cronkite
and, I mean, just major, major stars,
and we were part of it.
We were invited because "The Waltons"
was a part of the CBS lineup.
And there was a point when they were putting together,
they had these, all these bleachers
and they got all the actors together
and they put us on these bleachers
and took this big photo, which I have hanging on my wall,
it's amazing, it's a who's who.
But there were all kinds of people
that I was just, like, giddy,
like, "Oh, there's so-and-so,
and there's that person, oh, my goodness."
And Lassie was there and (laughs)
but Cicely Tyson was there,
and she, of course, had just done "Roots,"
and was this big, emerging star,
and I'd watched "Roots" and loved it.
And of course Ralph Waite had a role in it
that was very different than John Walton.
And Cicely Tyson
was running around getting everybody's autograph.
And I thought, "But you're Cicely Tyson,
you want my autograph?"
I was just so honored and humbled by that.
So things like that always touch me.
Stephanie asked me to talk about rehearsals.
There wasn't a lot of rehearsal
because things happen so fast.
And when you do a TV series,
like with "The Waltons," it runs for a long time,
you get to know the characters so well.
We knew who our characters were.
We knew what the relationship was
with all the other characters.
So we didn't have to figure that sort of thing out.
Rehearsal usually consisted
of more working out where the camera was gonna be,
what our physical movements were gonna be,
a little bit of how the scene was gonna play,
but mostly, unless the director
had a specific piece of information for you,
we kind of knew how our interaction went with each other.
More likely, the actors might choose
to do that on their own.
Might be like, "Hey, can we just sit over here
and run the scene a few times?" which we might do.
Otherwise, that was pretty much it on rehearsals.
Sometimes it just, yeah, didn't happen.
They're just, things move too fast,
so you, as an actor, had to do your own homework
and be prepared to come in there and just film.
So thanks for your question.
Steve asked, "Which celebrity cameo, a guest star,
got you the most excited when you heard or saw them?
Ron Howard, Sissy Spacek, Jonathan Banks,
Kym Karath, Jonathan Frakes, Stephen Collins,
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Linda Purl, Ned Beatty.
I mean, obviously, we had an amazing array of guest stars
that came in and worked on our show.
In the majority of cases, these people that came in,
they were at a point in their career
where they had not become a big name yet,
so we kind of caught 'em on the early end.
Sometimes there were people
that had already had really extensive careers,
and sometimes I knew about it, sometimes I didn't.
I remember when Jean Marsh came in.
Although I'd heard of "Upstairs, Downstairs,"
I'd never seen it, but I understood
that she had had a very prominent career already.
So with someone like Sissy Spacek,
this was very early in her career.
So she was lovely to work with, but it wasn't like,
I was like, "Oh, my goodness, that's Sissy Spacek."
So same thing with Jonathan Banks or Jonathan Frakes.
Ron Howard, however,
had already done "The Andy Griffith Show,"
and I'd already kind of grown up watching him,
so I, yeah, I was probably a little like,
"Oh, wow, it's Ron Howard," you know?
So that one, I was kind of probably most impressed with
'cause I knew who he was and I'd seen him.
So thanks, Steve, appreciate the question.
Next question is from Mike.
He says, "Were there ever scripts
that were written that were never filmed?"
Not that I'm aware of.
I mean, there very well may have been,
but if they were written and never filmed,
then they never made it to the actors.
So it wasn't like I was given a script
and then said, "Oh, nope, we're not gonna film that,"
because we really only got the scripts -
maybe if we were lucky - a week before we started filming,
usually within a few days before we started filming,
so by that time, they were pretty much committed
to we're gonna film this.
But behind the scenes,
there may have been scripts that came in that they went,
"No, not working, we're not gonna do it."
Second part of his question was,
"Were there ever episodes
that started off as written for one character
as the focal point, but we're changed for another?
For example, Mary Ellen falls in love,
and before filming, someone says,
'This is not a Mary Ellen episode,
this is an Erin episode.'"
Again, not in a script that I saw.
So if that happened, it may have been
in the preliminary development of the script
where there was a concept and it went out a particular way.
And then somewhere along the way, it was determined
that it was more of a Erin story than a Mary Ellen story.
So would be more of a question
for the script editors or something like that.
So if I ever get a chance to ask that question,
I'll try and get back to you with the answer.
Thanks.
Had another question that was asking
about whether the kids were allowed time for play.
Not specifically,
but because there were scenes we weren't in,
and during school, the school term,
if we weren't on set filming,
then we were required to do three hours of schoolwork a day,
which we did at the studio during the time
that filming was in play,
so - which was about nine months out of a year.
So during school term,
then we would go back to school in between.
And if we were done with school for the day,
then we might have downtime
where we could kind of goof off between scenes.
In the summer when we didn't have school,
then yeah, we had more downtime in between.
One of the things that I particularly remember
was there was a point in time where the kids got together
and created sort of a little short film.
I believe it was called "The Phantom of the Studio,"
and someone had a camera, one of the kids,
and we wrote a script
and we ran around the studio lot and filmed it.
And I don't remember who ended up with it, one of the boys,
so I'll have to check into that,
but we had a lot of fun making it.
I mean, what was tricky
was that once you were in makeup and hair for the day,
you couldn't mess around too much
and really destroy your hair and makeup.
So within reason, you know, and if you were in wardrobe,
you had to make sure that you didn't rip
or get your clothes too dirty.
So we had little bit of restrictions there.
It was much tougher on the younger kids.
And I know Kami has talked about how messy her hair was
because she was so young
that she really wasn't thinking about,
"I got to keep my hair neat," but that was something,
sometimes happened more with those of us
whose parents were there, would be like,
"Oh, my goodness, you're a mess.
We better straighten you up."
I was a little older,
so I was a little more personally conscious
of that sort of thing.
But, you know, filming was fun for us too.
So the whole day was kind of like playing
even though there was, you know, there was work
and it was hard work and it was tiring at times
and it was monotonous at times, but I still loved it,
and I think we all did.
This next question is from Jared.
He says, "After the series ended on CBS,
there were three movies
that aired on NBC the following season.
Were all of these filmed back-to-back?"
Yes, they were.
And, "Was there hope
that NBC would ask for more or even do a new series?"
Yeah, I think there was some hope.
I know I thought it would be really cool
if NBC picked up the series
or some spinoff off of it or something like that,
but obviously, that didn't happen.
We did the three for NBC,
and then it went back to CBS
for the final three TV movies that we did in the '90s.
And then this question, asking about,
wondering if "The Waltons" shot at locations
other than the Warner Brothers Studios backlot
or as it was called, the Burbank Studios back then.
And did the production ever shoot
at what must have been known at the time
as the Columbia Ranch?
So yes.
For some reason, the Warner Brothers Studios changed names
to the Burbank Studios at some point,
and then changed back to Warner Brothers.
So that's where we were based in terms of the filming,
the sound stages that we worked on.
Stage 26, that was at Warner Brothers.
We used what was called Midwest Street.
We used the backlot.
We used what was called Western Street,
the Jungle, which is where Drucilla's Pond was.
All those things were on the backlot.
Midwest Street housed like the school room
and Curt and Mary Ellen's house, Curt's office,
and later, Mary Ellen's house,
and various different other,
Mrs. Brimmer's house, things like that.
Godsey Store was on the very backlot
where the house was, where Drucilla's Pond was,
and where the church was
that didn't have the steps going up to it.
That was right on the backlot there.
We did occasionally shoot
at what is called the Columbia Ranch,
which is just a few blocks away from Warner Brothers.
At a point, there was a fire on the backlot
of Warner Brothers and the house burned down.
They rebuilt that on the backlot.
And that was before we did some of the last reunion movies.
Then at one point, they basically tore down all the sets
that were on the backlot of Warner Brothers
and turn that into office buildings, parking lots,
and stuff like that for the production going on.
And at that point,
they moved the Walton exterior of the house
over to this Columbia Ranch.
So for the very last reunion that we did,
we shot the exteriors of the house
over there at Columbia Ranch,
which is why, if you noticed,
the configuration of the front yard looked different,
the barn placement was different, the mill,
just there was a different sort of spacing over there
and it wasn't as expansive.
So we had to, you know, they, the art department,
the construction department,
had to reconfigure to make all that work.
It was what it was.
We were just happy to be back filming
in front of the house wherever it was located.
We also occasionally went out to local location -
Franklin Canyon, which is at the,
pretty much at the intersection
of Mulholland and Coldwater Canyon.
For people who know the LA area, there's a reservoir there.
So we would use that sometimes.
And then we would go out to Frazier Park,
which is, - 90 - to a couple hours or something like that.
North of Los Angeles when we needed more expansive stuff,
when we needed really the big pine trees.
Those were the primary other locations
that we would use on somewhat of a regular basis.
We usually went to Frazier Park
maybe a couple of times a season, maybe once.
Franklin Canyon, maybe a bit more,
but we did the majority of it on the studio lot.
That's what I have for this segment of "Ask Judy."
I will be back with more
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons,"
talking about different episodes, cast members,
and back with more "Ask Judy."
Thanks for watching.