The Waltons - The Wedding episode - behind the scenes with Judy Norton

- Hi, today I'm talking about the episode, "The Wedding". And of course it started off with a very iconic proposal or non-proposal when Curt basically said, "Well, I'm planning to marry you." And Mary Ellen says, "You call that a proposal?" And he says that, "It's the best one you're gonna get from me." And I very arrogantly say, "Well, I wouldn't marry you Curtis Willard if you were the last man on earth!" And then we go immediately to a wedding. So that was pretty typical of Mary Ellen because she was always so strong-headed and all that which is kinda what made her so much fun to play. But in that episode, at that point we went up to the mountain, and there was a point during the ceremony where we are in very tight close-ups. Go back and take a look at this episode and you'll see. And when we're basically listening to Reverend Fordwick, played by the fabulous John Ritter. Talk about the wedding vows and everything. And in those very tight shots, what you don't know is that we actually when we went out to film that, we went away to a location that was an hour and a half away from the studios where we filmed at Warner Brothers. And it was an early morning and we loaded up on the van and I believe that was the first time I actually worked with Tom as Curt of course Tom Bower had played a airplane pilot in a previous season of "The Waltons." But this was him coming back to play Curt. And, so I didn't really know him particularly and we kinda met that morning. It was like "Hi, I'm Judy." "Hi, you're Tom and let's go get married." So kind of similar to the Waltons'. For real for Mary Ellen, she and Curt didn't know each other very long. So we went out and shot this. But they forgot to get close ups. So at some point, a week or so later, we're on the backlot of the studios and they said, "We need to get these close ups." So they took these two ladders and they put us up at the top these very tall ladders and they put on these very, very, bright lights in our eyes and our faces to get our close ups. And so we stood on these ladders, and did those actual kind of 'I dos', which was kind of very uncomfortable and very awkward. But next time you watch that, take a look and see if you can spot that point where we're into those tight close ups and they put us up the ladders because that put us up with these trees closer behind us and I guess they thought that could more properly, blend with what we had shot out in the broader shots. So those are the kind of behind the scenes things that happen during the filming of "The Waltons" that takes away some of the glamor and the romance of it all. But some days its just those technical points and as an actor you learn to deal with them and to continue to give a performance regardless of the circumstances under which you are having to act. Including these incredibly bright lights in my face. So that's behind the scenes of "The Waltons" and Mary Ellen's wedding. And I'll be back with more later. If you enjoyed this please subscribe below. There's a subscribe button and write comments about the sorts of things you might like to have me share with you and I'll try and catch as many of those as I can. Okay, take care.

Channel: Judy Norton

Views: 58,500

Keywords: The Waltons, Judy Norton Taylor, Judy Norton-Taylor, Judy Norton, The Homecoming, John Boy Walton, Mary Ellen Walton, Kami Cotler, Elizabeth Walton, Judy, Richard Thomas, Michael Learned, Ralph Waite, Will Geer, Ellen Corby, Mary McDonough, Eric Scott, Jon Walmsley, David Harper, Behind the scenes, sneak peek, 70s TV, Classic TV, child actors, The Wedding, Curt and Mary Ellen, Tom Bower

Id: NE4wpF9twqQ

Length: 3min 45sec (225 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 14 2020