Trivia: Texas native David W. Harper became well known to audiences when he took on the role of Jim Bob on TV's The Waltons in 1972. He stayed with the series until it ended its run in 1981, and though he would reprise the role for subsequent Waltons TV movies, like 1982's A Wedding on Walton's Mountain. Harper largely retired from acting to become an art dealer.

Trivia: Many remember Kami Cotler as little Elizabeth from TV's The Waltons, which Cotler appeared on from 1972 to 1981. The actress also appeared in the short-lived Me and the Chimp in the 1970s, but otherwise retired from acting following the Waltons conclusion, returning only to reprise the role of Elizabeth for subsequent TV movies, like 1982's A Wedding on Walton's Mountain.

Trivia: Upon earning his BA at Bucknell University, Ralph Waite embarked upon no fewer than three careers before deciding upon acting. First, Waite was a social case worker in New York's Westchester County, a job he quit after running into the stone walls of indifference and bureaucracies. Then, after spending three years at the Yale School of Divinity, he was a practicing Presbyterian minister; this, too fell by the wayside due to Waite's unwillingness to conform to church protocol and his disenchantment over the perceived hypocrisy of his fellow clerics. Finally, he worked as a religious editor for the publishing firm of Harper & Row. This job might have panned out, but Waite, separated from his wife and suffering an identity crisis, felt the need to "prove himself" by entering a tougher, more competitive field. Thus, at the age of 30, Waite began taking acting lessons. His professional debut in the off-Broadway production The Balcony proved so disastrous that it is little wonder he chooses to regard his 1965 Broadway bow in Hogan's Goat as the true beginning of his career. After an excellent showing as Jack Nicholson's impotent brother in Five Easy Pieces (1971) the offers began pouring in. In 1972, Waite was cast as John Walton in the immensely popular TV series The Waltons. During the nine-season run of that ratings bonanza, Waite helped form the Los Angeles Actors' Theatre. He also was prominently featured in the blockbuster miniseries Roots (1977), and wrote and directed (but did not star in) the 1980 film On the Money. His post-Walton credits included the TV series Mississippi, the film Cliffhanger (1993) and TV movies Crash and Burn and Sin and Redemption. Towards the end of his career, he had a recurring role on Day of Our Lives as Father Matt, and played the father of two leading men on two long-running series - Gibbs on NCIS and Booth on Bones. Waite died in 2014 at age 85.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Supporting actor Becker first appeared onscreen as a juvenile in the '70s.

Trivia: Ronnie Claire Edwards made her acting debut with a role that most actors only dream of, taking on the role of Corabeth on TV's The Waltons in 1974. The show was intensely popular, and Edwards remained with the cast until the show ended its run in 1981. She also acted in a variety of other projects, like the '70s TV movies Future Cop and When Every Day Was the Fourth of July. After The Waltons, Edwards enjoyed an extensive career in repository theater, and continued to act on camera, mostly in the form of TV guest appearances on shows like Designing Women and Murder, She Wrote. She made several returns to the Waltons in the '90s for TV movies like A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion (1993) and A Walton Wedding (1995). Edwards died in 2016 at age 83.

Trivia: By the time she first appeared as Grandma Walton in 1971, American actress Ellen Corby had been playing elderly characters for nearly thirty years--and she herself was still only in her fifties. The daughter of Danish immigrants, Ellen Hansen was born in Wisconsin and raised in Philadelphia; she moved to Hollywood in 1933 after winning several amateur talent shows. Her starring career consisted of tiny parts in low-budget Poverty Row quickies; to make a living, Ellen became a script girl (the production person responsible for maintaining a film's continuity for the benefit of the film editor), working first at RKO and then at Hal Roach studios, where she met and married cameraman Francis Corby. The marriage didn't last, though Ellen retained the last name of Corby professionally. While still a script girl, Ellen began studying at the Actors Lab, then in 1944 decided to return to acting full time. She played several movie bit roles, mostly as servants, neurotics, and busybodies, before earning an Oscar nomination for the role of Trina the maid in I Remember Mama (1948). Her career fluctuated between bits and supporting parts until 1971, when she was cast as Grandma Walton in the CBS movie special The Homecoming. This one-shot evolved into the dramatic series The Waltons in 1972, with Ms. Corby continuing as Grandma. The role earned Ellen a "Best Supporting Actress" Emmy award in 1973, and she remained with the series until suffering a debilitating stroke in 1976. After a year's recuperation, Ellen returned to The Waltons, valiantly carrying on until the series' 1980 cancellation, despite the severe speech and movement restrictions imposed by her illness. Happily, Ellen Corby endured, and was back as Grandma in the Waltons reunion special of the early '90s.

Trivia: Remembered for his role as Jason on the beloved 1970s TV series The Waltons, Jon Walmsley was a seasoned performer when he joined the show's cast in 1971. The British born actor had been making the rounds in Hollywood for over five years, appearing in episodes of shows like Combat! and My Three Sons, but The Waltons would prove to be his big break. He stayed with the series until it ended its run in 1981, though Walmsley would reprise the role for subsequent Waltons TV movies, like 1982's A Wedding on Walton's Mountain. He later explored a career in music, playing guitar on the Richard Marx album Repeat Offender.

Trivia: Character actress, onscreen (after much stage experience) from 1968; usually in matronly roles.

Trivia: Character actor John Crawford has appeared on screen in many films since 1945.

Trivia: Los Angeles native Eric Scott didn't have to go far to try his hand at professional acting, making a few minor appearances on TV shows like Bewitched when he was barely a teenager. By 1972, the then 14 year old had caught his big break: a starring role on the series The Waltons. He stayed with the series until it ended its run in 1981, and though Scott would reprise the role for subsequent Waltons TV movies, like 1982's A Wedding on Walton's Mountain, he largely retired from acting to run his own company.

Trivia: Though perhaps best remembered for portraying the wise and crusty Grandpa Zeb Walton on the long-running The Waltons (1972-1978), character actor Will Geer had been a staple in films and television for many years before that. He had also been a Broadway regular since his theatrical debut in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1928). Born William Auge Ghere in Frankfort, IN, his interest in acting began in high school. Geer studied botany at the University of Chicago and earned a master's in botany at Columbia. During his college days, Geer also appeared in student theater. Always a bit of a rebel with a genuine love of people and the land, Geer hooked up with folksingers Woody Guthrie and Burl Ives during the Depression to travel about and perform, mostly at government work camps. Even late in life, Geer described himself as a folklorist. Actress Helen Hayes wryly described him once as "the world's oldest hippie." He got his professional start with Eva Le Gallienne's National Repertory Company. During the '30s and '40s, Geer appeared often on Broadway. Beginning with The Misleading Lady in 1932, he began playing small occasional roles in films. By the late '40s, he had become a character actor in such films as Intruder in the Dust (1949). He often appeared in Westerns like Comanche Territory and Broken Arrow (1950). In 1951, after appearing in four films that year, Geer was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee for refusing to answer their questions. Still, Geer managed to appear in at least one film, Salt of the Earth, a defiant, incendiary documentary look at a worker's strike led by the wives of abused salt miners in New Mexico that featured a production staff largely comprised of blackballed Hollywood artists. Other than that, Geer returned to Broadway until 1962 when Otto Preminger cast him as a Senate minority leader in Advise and Consent. During the '60s, the 6'2", 230-pound Geer was frequently cast in villainous roles. He often appeared on television throughout the decade in shows ranging from Gunsmoke to Hawaii 5-0 as well as playing a regular role on the short-lived series The Young Rebels (1970-1971). He was a key member of The Waltons from the pilot special through his death when the series was on summer hiatus in 1978. His was among the show's most popular characters and he is said to have patterned Zebulon Walton after producer/creator Earl Hamner's book character, himself, and his own grandfather, a successful sourdough during the California goldrush who sported a mustache and white hair similar to Geer's own. It was his grandfather who taught the actor to love nature and to study botany. In addition to his work on the popular family series, Geer also continued a busy feature-film and television-movie career. His last film appearance was in the highly regarded made-for-TV biography of Harriet Tubman, A Woman Called Moses (1978). His daughter, Ellen Geer, is also an actor.

Trivia: Many remember Joe Conley for his role as Ike Godsey on TV's The Waltons, but the actor was actually a veteran at his craft long before he joined the series in 1972. Building a strong career out of small roles on early TV shows like Lassie and Dragnet, Conley specialized in single-episode appearances (aside from a six-episode recurring role on the sitcom Mister Ed) for 20 years, up until he was cast in The Waltons. He stayed with the series until 1981, and reprised the role for subsequent TV movies like A Wedding on Walton's Mountain. Conley subsequently went into semi-retirement, sporadically appearing in projects like 2000's Cast Away.

Trivia: The eldest of six sisters, Michael Learned spent her first decade on her family's farm in Connecticut. When she was 11, Learned moved to Austria, where her father worked for the U.S. State Department. While attending boarding school in England, she discovered the theater, and decided to make it her life's work. At 16, she married actor Peter Donat, a union that lasted until 1972. Dividing her time between stage acting and raising her sons, she appeared in Canadian and American Shakespeare Festival, and for several years was associated with San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre. While appearing in a production of Noel Coward's Private Lives, Learned was selected by John Rich to play Olivia Walton on his upcoming TV series The Waltons (she replaced Patricia Neal, who starred as Olivia in the 1971 pilot film The Homecoming). She remained with The Waltons until 1980, winning three Emmies in the process. In 1981, she was starred as Mary Benjamin in her own series, Nurse (1981-82), which earned her a fourth Emmy. Hoping to distance herself from the Olivia Walton image, she went to play Dr. Marie Teller in the 1988 weekly Hothouse and model agency head Trish Carlin in Living Dolls (1989). She also appeared in such theatrical features as Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) and such made-for-TV specials as All My Sons (1986). Eventually, however, Michael Learned returned to the Waltons fold in a 1995 TV-movie reunion.

Trivia: Eric Stoltz has appeared in a number of major and minor features and on television. While growing up, the pale, slender, and red-haired Stoltz spent time in American Samoa. His interest in acting began in high school where he not only acted in productions, but also occasionally accompanied them on piano. While attending U.S.C., Stoltz studied theater arts but left the program to study under Stella Adler, William Taylor, and Peggy Feury. Afterward, Stoltz spent a season in Edinburgh performing with an American repertory company. Upon his return stateside, Stoltz appeared in the television movie version of humorist Erma Bombeck's novel The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (1978). He would appear in three more television films before making his film debut in Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) alongside such other would-be stars as Sean Penn, Anthony Edwards, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. From there, Stoltz appeared in a series of low-budget films such as Running Hot (1982) and Surf 2 (1984), and he might well have remained at that level had he not been cast as Rocky Dennis in Peter Bogdanovich's Mask (1986). Playing a young teen suffering from lionitis, a terminal disease that drastically deforms the skull, Stoltz had to wear pounds of makeup and prosthetics (the makeup won Oscars for designers Zoltan Elek and Michael Westmore) that left him with only his voice, his eyes, and his body with which to convey emotions. Starring opposite Cher, who played his drug-addicted biker-chick mother, Stoltz gave a moving performance that earned him critical and audience acclaim. But though it made Stoltz popular, full-fledged stardom eluded him and he continued appearing in moderately successful and low-budget films, including John Hughes' romantic drama Some Kind of Wonderful (1987). In addition to his film work, Stoltz has had a busy Broadway career that began in 1988 with a Tony-nominated starring role in a revival of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and a sporadic television career making guest appearances on such series as Mad About You and in TV movies. Stoltz has occasionally produced films such as Mr. Jealousy (1997). In 2002 Stoltz reteamed with Killing Zoe director Rogery Avery for the pitch-black college comedy The Rules of Attraction, and the following decade found him increasingly active on the small screen with roles in Will & Grace, Close to Home, Grey's Anatomy, and the 2009 Battlestar Galactica spin-off Capricia. Meanwhile, back on the silver screen, Stoltz earned accolades for his leading role as a conflicted barber of German heritage forced to suppress his American patriotism after moving his family to a post-World War II military base which houses a German POW camp.