- Welcome back to another segment
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons."
Today, I'm going to take more of your questions
in a segment of Ask Judy.
If you're enjoying these,
please do hit like, and subscribe.
I frequently get asked about "Walton" bloopers.
Every year at our Christmas party,
we did screen a roll of bloopers from during the season.
And quite often, it was things that members of the cast
had kind of cooked up intentionally.
But then sometimes things came off of,
like an airplane going over and someone going,
ah, well, how about we catch that airplane?
Which of course, jets were not flying over Walton's mountain
back in the 1930s and 40s.
Unfortunately, I never had those blooper reels,
and I don't know who does have them,
and I don't know where they are.
So I'm unable to share them with you.
I think there's one or two clips
that are maybe up someplace on YouTube, but I don't know.
So sorry to say, I do not have bloopers to share with you.
Hiker X asked,
I always wondered was Martha Corinne's cabin
really up in the mountains.
The backdrop scenery behind them is particularly stunning.
That was a set that was built by our art department,
and was erected at Frazier Park,
where we did a number of our locations
that were really up in the mountains,
and that segment for the moonshine,
and for when Martha Corrine and her family
were being basically kicked off the mountain.
Those were shot up there in Frazier Park.
Karen asked, how far was the soundstage from the backlot
where we did the outside scenes.
Stage 26 that we filmed on was right at the last row
of the soundstages
before all of this sort of backlot started.
So depending on where we were going,
if we were going to Midwest street,
it was a very short walk.
If we were going all the way to the back lot,
maybe, I'd say no more than 10 minute walk,
probably less to get back there.
So, all pretty easy to navigate on foot.
Rob asked, how long did you live in Vancouver?
I was based in Vancouver, Canada for 10 years.
And during that time,
I spent eight of those years working
with a theater company up there as an artistic director,
involved with all the writing and directing for the company.
And then I stayed on and did another couple of years,
just really based in Vancouver.
The theaters were in Edmonton, Winnipeg and then in Calgary.
So I traveled quite a bit of Canada while I was up there.
And indeed, I do have dual citizenship.
So, it's always a pleasure for me to go back
and work in Canada.
Terry asked, when you filmed a scene
that takes place at a dance,
did you actually do it to music or was that added in later?
It kind of depended.
Usually, we could hear the music.
And so we knew kind of what the tempo was,
but if there was dialogue being said, being spoken,
then they wanted to get that without the music in.
So, they would shoot all of those
without the actual music playing.
So you just kind of knew what the tempo was,
and kind of kept going.
And then we did the dialogue cleanly,
and then they would kind of put all that
layering of sound together in post-production.
Maria asked, may I ask how you as a youngster
memorized your lines and how long it took.
It depended on how many lines,
how many scenes, all that sort of thing.
If I had a couple of lines, super fast.
If I had a number of scenes,
I would always learn my lines the night before,
and then I would review them in the morning.
And again, before each scene that was going to be shot.
If I had a lot of work,
we usually shot between eight and 10 pages in a day.
So overnight, if I had 10 pages of dialogue,
it wouldn't be every single line was mine.
So even if it was 10 pages, the most I might have,
if you've got a lumped it all the other, was five pages.
So with those, maybe it took me a little bit longer,
but I would just really work with what the other lines were.
I would take my page and I would look at my first line,
and then I would learn that,
I'd say it a bunch of times till I knew it.
And then I'd look at what the next person's line was.
So I knew what my cue was,
and then I would learn the next line.
And then I would usually put them together.
I do the first line, look at the second line
that was going to be said to me,
and then learn my next line.
And I would just keep adding on to them in that way
until I had the whole scene.
Sally asked a couple of questions.
She wanted to know whether I've taken any aspects
of the "Walton" story or particular episodes
and incorporated them into my own life or philosophy.
I don't know about consciously,
but certainly, the stories that were told
and playing those characters and understanding
and experiencing those relationships on camera,
I can't help, but feel that those impacted me watching these
wonderful role models of John and Olivia's parents
and the beautiful scenes that were written
in terms of how they parented those seven children,
and the relationship with the grandparents.
And so, yeah,
I think those I'm sure impacted me
in various ways in my life that I wasn't even aware of.
She also asked,
wanting to know more about my skydiving adventures.
Ah.
I originally learned to sky dive for "Circus of the Stars.
I was asked to do a stunt
that involved wingwalking and skydiving.
So in order to do that, I had to learn to sky dive.
I was given two instructors,
and for a month,
I was out with them jumping five days a week.
So I went through a whole training program there.
And then when we went to film the stunt in Las Vegas,
there were very high winds and those are not safe conditions
under which to be under parachute.
So, they weren't able to shoot it in Las Vegas.
They said, we will shoot this segment back in Los Angeles,
the day they scheduled, it was raining,
again, not conditions under which you can skydive safely.
So, they ran out of time and couldn't do the stunt
for that year's "Circus of the Stars."
And they said, well, we will tease it this year,
and do it next year.
And then when it came to next year, for some reason,
they had decided to scrub the stunt altogether.
And they gave me a choice of doing tightrope
or flying trapeze,
not being typically fond of heights.
I didn't know which would be less daunting.
And I chose flying trapeze for some reason.
So I did that stunt.
But with the skydiving,
after I'd gotten through all my training, I really loved it.
And I continued to jump for an additional 10 years.
I finally did my last jump when I was pregnant with my son,
and went well.
I'm now pregnant and I'm not going to be jumping more.
And then small child, raising a family.
It just, I never got back to it,
but I did have somewhere around 700 jumps.
I was involved in two world records
for largest formations ever built.
One was 60 women, all women that we did in Deland, Florida.
And then the other one was a combined
men and women's record that was 120 people.
We jumped out of a military C130 plane, prop plane.
And it was amazing.
So, I really enjoyed all of the years I spent skydiving.
It is very exhilarating
for any of you who have given it a try,
but I thank you for asking Sally.
Cindy asked, when Tom Bower who played Curt
joined the show in Season 5,
was it known from the beginning
that Curt would be killed at Pearl Harbor?
Or was that a decision that the writers made later?
I think it's probably a decision the writers made later.
I don't know that more than sort of a arc for the season
was created at the beginning of each year,
but it could be,
there could have been broad strokes four seasons,
for instance, Mary Ellen will get married in Season 5,
and in Season 6
she'll have the first grandchild,
and Ben will get married in Season 7.
So it could have been a bit of that,
but I never really got that sense.
I certainly never saw anything that gave me
any advance sense of where the seasons were going,
and what was happening.
So, I have a feeling it may not have been planned.
So, why they chose to do that at that point?
I'm not entirely sure.
But an interesting question.
Will asked about Grandma,
why she had to be sent to live with other unseen relatives
when Mary Ellen was a nurse,
that it sort of seemed like Mary Ellen
should be the one caring for Grandma.
The family should be caring for her.
And that's a very good point.
I think it had more to do with the fact that Ellen,
after her stroke,
wasn't really physically up to doing every single episode.
Therefore, I think rather than
pushing her more than she might be comfortable,
it's a tough grinding schedule for all of us doing a series
nine months out of the year.
So, I think they wrote that as a storyline
to help protect her health.
Larry asked, he said,
I love the scenes at Druscillas pond, was the water warm?
No, it wasn't.
I had thought maybe it was,
but then I was reminded that it wasn't.
So fortunately, most of the times we had to be in the water,
it was summer.
So, and I think I was more tolerant of cold water
when I was younger.
Now I'm a total whimp.
I know it would be really hard for me to do now,
but it wasn't super deep.
So if it had been filled for some time,
it might have warmed up a bit more
than when it was first being filled.
That's what I have for you for this segment of Ask Judy.
I will be back taking more of your question
in a future segment of Ask Judy.
And I will be back with more behind the scenes
of "The Waltons."
Thanks for watching.