On March 24,The Waltonscreator Earl Hamner diedafter a battle with cancer at age 92.
To commemorate his life, EW is rerunning our reunion of the CBS drama’s cast from 2013.
But the rap on the show has always been that it was “sweet” or “sentimental.”
Credit: CBS/Getty Images
“But it was groundbreaking in many ways.”
The Watergate break-in had happened in June.
“I wasn’t interested,” says Ralph Waite, 85, who played John Walton.
“But my agent talked me into it.
It looked soft, to be sure.
But it was also radical.
By the end of its first season, it had climbed into the top 20.
By its second,The Waltonswas the No.
In retrospect, it’s easy to understand why the show broke through.
But simmering beneath that sepia-toned sentiment was a quiet, unabashed liberalism.
Series creator Hamner, 90, insists that they weren’t trying to teach anyone a lesson.
“I kept thinking, ‘What message?’
If you grew up watchingThe Waltons, as mostGen-Xers did, none of that registered, of course.
“What has moved me the most is the mail I’m still getting,” says Waite.
“They tell me that I was their surrogate father, the one who brought them up.”
That family came back together recently on a scorching September day at the Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank.
“It truly is a family,” saysJudy Norton, who played eldest daughter Mary Ellen.
“I can get mad at them and know that we still love each other.”
(He has since quit).
Missing were grandparents Geer, who died in 1978, and Corby, who died in 1999.
“This is a chance for us to come full circle.”
Perhaps the most subversive thing aboutThe Waltonswas that it refused to yield to conventional wisdom.
“I think the audience needed this affirmation of values, and we supplied that,” Hamner says.
“It lifted their spirits.
And the country needed lifting.”
Richard Thomas
Thomas (John-Boy), 62, plays Frank Gaad on FX’s dramaThe Americans.
He’s just returned to school, studying business and history.
Kami Cotler
Cotler (Elizabeth), 48, built a career in education.
She is the founding principal of Environmental Charter Middle School in Gardena, Calif., which educates underserved kids.
