- Welcome to another segment
of Behind The Scenes Of The Waltons.
This is an Ask Judy segment,
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So today I'm going to be talking about
the clothes. The Walton wardrobe department.
I've had a few questions.
Pat asked, I noticed that the dresses worn by the female
cast were more than simply made out of old flour sacks.
They were cotton, but expertly tailored.
Were they as comfortable as they appeared?
So I thought this raised that question
of how some of the wardrobe came about on the Waltons.
So we worked at Warner Brothers Studios,
Warner Brothers had a wardrobe department.
So for the first season we did go up, we had appointments.
So we had like costume fittings
and I went up to see our costumer, Patricia Norris.
And she had a number of things set aside
for me to try on that were of the period
that would be not only correct for the time period
but also for where the Waltons lived
in this rural area of Virginia.
So I would have gone in and tried on any number
of pieces of clothing, and then the ones that worked right
for or fit me the way the costumer wanted them
to and also worked for the show would have been
set aside in my section of wardrobe.
And then each actor had a section for their wardrobe.
And in a given scene, our costume designers
and our onset wardrobe people would,
they'd break down the script
and decide how many different days
how many different costumes for each character,
and then they would choose which things
they wanted us to wear on which day.
Sometimes I could have some input, I might say,
I'd really like to wear this dress
or this outfit for this scene.
But most of the time I just kinda went, okay.
They put that dress in there,
I guess I'll put that one on.
Patricia Norris was with us on the Waltons for five seasons.
And her son also came in and worked and he stayed
for a number more seasons during the course of the Waltons.
Patricia went on and continued to work
on a number of other shows and films.
She was nominated for six Oscars, including for 12 Years
a Slave for which she was nominated
and won multiple awards for that fabulous film.
The film Sunset, 2010 - The Year We Make Contact,
Victor / Victoria one of my favorite films,
The Elephant Man- fabulous - and Days of Heaven were all films
that she was nominated for an Oscar for best costume design.
So clearly a very knowledgeable
and one of the premier designers in our industry.
So we were very fortunate to have Patricia.
Early on, with this Warner Brothers stock,
some of these clothes had been in that wardrobe department
for some time and they were a lot of them in - were cotton.
And for the girls with dresses
and shirts and things like that
they became very threadbare from being cleaned so often
and they would get tears in them.
And so they would get gaff tape,
black I mean, sorry, grey gaff tape.
And they would tape the wardrobe like inside a dress.
They just put a piece of tape in there.
Well, when we were outside and it was hot
the tape and against our body, you might sweat,
and so you'd end up with like the tape sticking
to your back as well as the costume.
And, eventually they'd have to say goodbye to a piece
of clothing because it had just had too many holes
and it couldn't be worn again, but they would have
to at least finish out the episode so that it would match.
So a lot of times people have commented thinking
that some of the clothes didn't seem real period.
Well, some of them were really, really period.
And early on I found that we didn't always
have the best fitting clothes.
We did deal with the aspect of hand-me-downs
where I know there was a blue dress
with a pink ribbon that was made for Mary Ellen
for I believe the Easter Story episode when I went
to that dance with GW.
Well, in some later episodes, Erin was wearing that dress.
So it had been handed down from Mary Ellen to Erin.
We noticed times when Elizabeth was getting
too tall for her dresses.
And, so her dresses start looking a little short on her.
So these were all things that were very true
and real to life in that period.
We didn't have a lot of different dresses
so we wore the same things while the boys wore
the same shirts and jeans.
And, for, because people wouldn't have an entire
closet full of clothes, you were fortunate
to have a few things that you wore.
So that's what we did.
As the series continued and we progressed into the 40's,
there was a period in time when later in the 70's
40's fashion came back into style in real life. And I know that the costumers were able to literally go shop
off the rack for clothes for me.
And I was a little frustrated with myself personally
because sometimes I would go out shopping
for personal clothes and would see things
and think "I could wear this on the show.
I don't want to be wearing clothes in real life
that look like I'm wearing my wardrobe".
So I would personally tend to steer away from that.
Whereas in the beginning, in the early 70's
when fashion was very specific,
low hip hugger jeans with bell bottoms and things
like that that were not the fashion for the 30's,
but by the time we kind of got towards the 40's,
real life and the period had kind of merged a bit.
So I recall that.
And in fact, I'm wearing this particular,
this is a dress I'm wearing
but when I found this dress a couple of years ago
I was looking for something for an event I was going to.
And I got it, and it's always sort of felt to me a little
like it's something that I could have worn
on the Waltons in later years.
So I kind of get a kick out of that now.
I did have my favorite outfits that I liked to wear
when the Waltons were having, going to a special party
or Mary Ellen had something special she was doing.
A couple in particular of my favorites is this pink dress
that I wore in The Whirlwind episode when I'm saying goodbye
or I think I'm saying goodbye to Jonesy.
I just, I love the shape of it and I love the slightly,
the flared skirt.
I, just thought that was always a very flattering fashion
on women and so I was very happy to be able to wear this.
Also this lovely peach dress that I'm wearing here
in this episode, The Spirit, when we're celebrating
Christmas I really enjoy this dress too.
So they were my favorites over the years.
Some of the hats were a lot of fun.
I also love, the fashion that some
of the other women in the show got to wear.
The boys had less option.
They went from knickers to long pants.
I, of course started in overalls a lot
and those were always fun cause they were really comfortable. I
wore jeans at times.
So the boys, because they were working in the mill
and stuff, a lot of jeans and just shirts, button up shirts
people didn't wear T-shirts. Some of - some characters
in the show did, but there was definitely research that went
into it and they did do their best to keep it period
to that time.
We'll talk about the hair another time
'cause I know that didn't stay all that period
but yeah, with the fashion it was.
Then there was some of the other characters.
The Baldwin sisters who had fabulous clothes
and theirs were always not quite up to current fashion
because they were from a different era.
So their clothing always evoked an earlier time period.
Corebeth I'm sure had a lot of fun Ronnie Claire,
with some of the great outfits that she got to wear.
Cause there was, she had all of her sort of everyday
clothes around the store.
And then she had certain items that had
a little more flare to them.
And some of the hats that she wore,
the Baldwin sisters wore were wonderful.
And then we had guest stars who got to wear wonderful
clothes like in The Actress when she comes
into town and she has very elegant clothing
and of course, dresses Mary Ellen
up in one of those dresses, which doesn't go well.
So we did have that, even some of the men
some of the suits were fabulous
and you notice that the ties changed width
and stuff and the lapels changed and stuff like that.
Some of the shoes were a lot of fun.
So it's always great getting to do period shows
because the costuming is so terrific.
That's what I have for you for this segment
of Behind The Scenes Of The Waltons, about the clothing,
I will be back with more of behind the scenes
about episodes and also more Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.