Here’s How ‘The Waltons’ Changed Michael Learned’s Life
Growing up, I loved The Waltons. The show premiered on CBS in 1972 and ran for a total of nine seasons. There were just certain aspects of the show that really appealed to me. One was that Richard Thomas‘s John Boy character wanted to be a writer. That was something that I wanted to do as well.
Another thing I loved was how close-knit the family was. That closing scene in each episode where everyone was wishing each other a good night really hit home for me. We kind of did that sometimes in our home, but as often as possible, I would wait for everyone else to fall asleep and then grab a flashlight and a comic book and enjoy a little more high-quality reading time before nodding off.
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While I thought the entire cast was great, I loved the actors who played John and Olivia Walton. And while this article certainly focuses more on Michael Learned (Olivia Walton) than anyone else, Ralph Waite certainly has a pivotal role to play here. So, what am I talking about? Well, it was the moment that changed Michael’s life forever.
I should actually say moments, because there were two of them. As Michael tells the story, the first moment came when she was asked to test for the role of Olivia Walton. At that time, Michael was staying at a $12-a-day motel with her kids, drinking a bit too much (at least according to her), and trying to figure out just how she was going to make a career out of the entertainment industry.
In various interviews over the years, Michael has admitted that she may have been a bit hungover when she did her actual screen test for the show. However, since her test was with both Ralph Waite and Richard Thomas, she was able to focus on those two great actors and really zero in on their performances, and because of that, deliver a great performance of her own. This earned her the role that would change her life forever, at least from a financial security standpoint.
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That said, Michael still found herself perhaps a little too reliant on alcohol to numb other aspects of her life. This brings us to the second and perhaps even more important moment. At some point during those first couple of seasons, actor Ralph Waite pulled Michael aside and told her that he was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. When she acknowledged that she admired him for doing that, he told her in a way that only a TV husband could, that she should attend as well.
Michael has called her relationship with Ralph “true love,” and although they were just friends, she really did love him, and she knew that he loved her as well. For that reason, she also knew that if he wanted her to attend AA with him, it wasn’t just because he needed the moral support. In a 2019 article by Fox News Journalist Stephanie Nolasco, Michael is quoted as saying this of her costar’s intervention, “Ralph saved my life, really.”
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By the time The Waltons ended, Richard Thomas had bolted, and Michael had decided to leave the series as a regular at the end of the seventh season. She was ready for a different type of role, something else to sink her teeth into, and another CBS TV series proved to be exactly that. The series was called Nurse and Michael would win an Emmy for her portrayal of the title character, Mary Benjamin.
Over the years, Michael has returned to Walton’s Mountain to appear in a handful of reunion movies featuring the Walton’s cast. Even more recently, Michael starred alongside veteran actor John Wesley in the short film Second Acts, where they play friends who were separated by their families because of race decades earlier, who are finally able to reunite and rekindle their friendship.
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November 2023
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