Here’s What We Can Expect from THE WALTONS Stars’ Reunion This Fall
By Movieguide® Contributor
THE WALTONS cast is set to reunite at the upcoming Waltons’ Fall Fest.
“Like a Waltons’ meal, there will be storytelling and maybe a little misbehaving,” star Kami Colter, who played Elizabeth on the iconic show, said of the upcoming festivities.
The Waltons’ Fall Fest will take place Oct. 4-6 at different locations around Pennsylvania’s Lawrence County.
“We started with a few events in Virginia (where THE WALTONS was set) and people would say you should come to Pennsylvania or wherever,” Colter explained. “THE WALTONS was about working people and that’s who our fans are, so it’s always smaller places. Most of our fans are not people who could on a whim go to Los Angeles.”
These days, Colter and her WALTONS co-stars see these fan events as ways for their onscreen family to reunite.
“[The reunions are] an excuse for us to be together. We try to get to an area a few days early and go out to eat and see the architecture and the area. From age 6 to 16, I spent more waking time with these people than most real families spend together,” she shared. “Even though we’ve been friends for decades and decades, it’s always magical when we get together. I think people want to believe that what they saw on TV was reality and in a way it was.”
Michael Learned, who played matriarch Olivia Walton, echoed Colter’s sentiments in an interview with Fox News, calling them her “second family.”
“We spent more time together shooting the show than we did with our own families, so of course, we became close,” she said. “I love them.”
Ellen Corby, who played the Walton children’s grandmother, Esther, also said the TV family became her own.
“I live alone and never had a family of my own,” she said of THE WALTONS cast. “These children on the show are like my own grandkids and I really AM the grandma around here. I’m so darned proud of that.”
Movieguide® previously reported on the enduring popularity of THE WALTONS:
Richard Thomas, best known for his role as John-Boy in the hit ’70sTV show THE WALTONS, reflected on his time on the show and his current role in a play of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.
“When the show came out, there was really no show like it. It was very different from what the usual programming was in those days,” he said of THE WALTONS. “It was kind of a special new thing for people as well as a beautiful story about an American family and just family in general. It was popular all over the world because family is something that persists across all borders.”
