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For decades, the parents on The Waltons brought cheer to fans with their steady, honest love.
Michael Learned, who played matriarch Olivia, recently revealed that she intentionally kept her relationship with her on-screen husband, John, the late Ralph Waite, platonic.
“I just loved him and he loved me. That was very real and we were also very wise. We didn’t sleep together in real life,” the actress, 86, said at the fan event The Hollywood Show on June 7. “We knew that that could just go downhill. So as much as we loved each other, we were just very respectful of the show and who we were and who our characters were. So we just remained dear, dear friends.”
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The series, about a family living in the mountains of Virginia during the Great Depression, ran for eight seasons between 1972 and 1980. The success of the show led to six TV movies, which wrapped up in 1997.
Waite died in 2014 at the age of 85. He last reunited with the cast just a year before his death for an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
The actor, who played the family’s hardworking father, is still remembered fondly by his onscreen children, along with Learned.
“Ralph and Michael were the gatekeepers of honesty of the show. Ralph was impatient with anything that was going to be fake, false, reversed the guideline. Michael, same way,” Richard Thomas, 73, who played John-Boy, said during The Hollywood Show panel. “They were exemplars of keeping it honest and keeping it real and questioning and making sure that it was right. So they sort of were the beacons of integrity for all this as we all tried to do it, but they really were the leaders.”
At the event, the cast shared some behind-the-scenes looks of the family’s signature moments, including the frequent scenes around the dinner table. Learned revealed that she never actually ate the food shown in the show.
“She’ll move the food and then she’ll cut a piece and then it will approach her lips just as an interesting piece of dialogue happens,” Judy Norton, 67, who played eldest daughter Mary Sue, said of Learned. “And then she looks up and puts the fork down. I remember two shots of you and Ralph where he just finally said, ‘Take a bite! Take a bite!’ ”
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Kami Cotler, 59, who played Elizabeth, said the food got “very gross” after using the same plates for multiple takes.
“A three-minute kitchen scene takes four hours to film,” she said. “So the food just gets more and more congealed and they put on your plate and scrape it back onto the serving dish. But Ralph, he was realistic. He would eat.”
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The cast also reflected on the impact The Waltons has had over the years.
“I don’t think anybody expected that 50 years later people would still be talking about the show. I think there was authenticity in the relationships on the show that was real,” said Eric Scott, 66, who played Ben, the third Walton son. “I think that what people saw between us was real. Essentially when we were all together it was a great love story and people responded to that.”
