So many episodes ended the same way. The lights in the farmhouse went out one window at a time, and a chorus of voices traded good nights until somebody said, “Good night, John-Boy.” For nine seasons on CBS, from 1972 to 1981, The Waltons carried millions of families through the Great Depression and World War II on a mountain in Virginia. Creator Earl Hamner Jr. built it from his own boyhood memories of Schuyler, Virginia, and the show grew out of his 1971 TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.
The Walton cast was a working family on and off the set. Several of the children grew up in front of the camera, and the grown-ups won a shelf full of Emmys between them. Decades later, the surviving cast still turns up together at reunions and fan weekends. Here is what became of the Waltons cast, starting with the stars we have lost and ending with the ones who are still with us.
Is Will Geer still alive?
Will Geer played Zebulon Walton, the whittling, fiddle-loving grandpa who never met a hillside he would not climb. He came to the role with a long and hard-won career behind him. Born on March 9, 1902, in Frankfort, Indiana, Geer was blacklisted in Hollywood in the early 1950s after he refused to name names before Congress. He kept working on the stage. In 1951, he and his wife, actress Herta Ware, founded the Theatricum Botanicum, an outdoor theater in Topanga, California.
The Waltons gave him the most beloved role of his life. He won the 1975 Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for playing Grandpa.
Geer died on April 22, 1978, in Los Angeles at age 76. According to Variety and his Wikipedia biography, the cause was respiratory failure. He had just finished the show’s sixth season. His family gathered at his bedside and sang folk songs he had written with his old friend Woody Guthrie and recited poems by Robert Frost. The writers wove Zeb’s passing into the series the following season, and his ashes rest in the Shakespeare garden of the theater he founded.
Is Ellen Corby still alive?
Ellen Corby was Esther Walton, the sharp-tongued, Bible-quoting grandma who could silence the whole dinner table with one look. Long before the role, she spent about 12 years as a script girl at RKO and Hal Roach Studios, often on the Our Gang comedies. Her acting break led to an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for playing Aunt Trina in I Remember Mama (1948).
On The Waltons, she won three Emmys in 1973, 1975, and 1976. Then, in November 1976, she suffered a massive stroke at home that damaged her speech and mobility. She fought her way back to the show in 1978, and the scripts worked her real recovery into Grandma’s story. She played Esther one last time in the 1997 TV movie A Walton Easter.
Ellen Corby died on April 14, 1999, at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She was 87. Her Wikipedia biography notes several years of declining health, and The Washington Post reported that she died of natural causes.
Is Ralph Waite still alive?
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Ralph Waite played John Walton Sr., the lumber mill owner who could fix anything and kept his family fed through the leanest years. He came to acting late. He did not begin studying until he was 30 and made his professional debut in 1960. During the show’s run he earned an Emmy nomination for playing the slave ship’s first mate, Slater, in the 1977 miniseries Roots.
After all that time on The Waltons, Waite starred in The Mississippi (1982 to 1984). He also ran for Congress in California as a Democrat. He lost in 1990 and again twice in 1998 to Mary Bono, the widow of Sonny Bono. A whole new generation met him late in life as Jackson Gibbs, the father of Mark Harmon’s character on NCIS. He also appeared on Bones and as Father Matt on Days of Our Lives.
Ralph Waite died at his home in Palm Desert, California, on February 13, 2014. He was 85. His manager, Alan Mills, told the Associated Press that Waite had been in good health and still working, and Wikipedia records the cause as natural causes. His TV wife Michael Learned said, “We loved each other for over forty years.”
Are Joe Conley and Ronnie Claire Edwards still alive?
Joe Conley played Ike Godsey, who ran the general store and post office where the whole mountain caught up on the news. Ronnie Claire Edwards joined the show in 1974 as Corabeth, the high-strung and hopelessly proper Walton cousin who married Ike. Together they gave the series some of its gentlest comedy.
Joe Conley was born on March 3, 1928, in Buffalo, New York. He died on July 7, 2013, at a care facility in Southern California, after suffering from dementia. He was 85, as both Wikipedia and The Boston Globe reported.
Ronnie Claire Edwards was born on February 9, 1933, in Oklahoma City. She died at her Dallas home on June 14, 2016, at age 83. Her longtime friend and business partner, Marty Van Kleeck, told the Associated Press the cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Is Michael Learned still alive?
Michael Learned played Olivia Walton, the steady heart of the family who held the house together through money troubles and wartime fear. She won three Emmys for the role, in 1973, 1974 and 1976. She stepped back from the series in its later seasons, and she has since been candid that she left because the part had grown boring for her.
Leaving paid off. Learned won a fourth Emmy for Nurse in 1982, which ties her with Tyne Daly for the most wins as lead actress in a drama series. She later worked on Scrubs, General Hospital and The Young and the Restless. In 2022 she played Catherine Dahmer in the Netflix series Dahmer, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
Yes, Michael Learned is still alive. Born on April 9, 1939, in Washington, D.C., she is 87 years old. AOL reported on her birthday in April, and a 2026 interview carried by Yahoo found her still taking on new film roles.
Is Jon Walmsley still alive?
Jon Walmsley played Jason Walton, the second son who loved music and was always reaching for a guitar or a piano. That part of the character came straight from the actor. Walmsley was born in Blackburn, England, and learned guitar as a schoolboy. Disney fans also know his voice as Christopher Robin in the Winnie the Pooh cartoons.
After the show he built a real career as a musician. In the late 1980s he toured in Richard Marx’s band and appeared in two of Marx’s music videos. He has also worked with the Doobie Brothers and the Beach Boys. His most recent album, A Joyful Noise, came out in 2023.
Yes, Jon Walmsley is still alive. Born on February 6, 1956, he turned 70 this year, as TV Insider noted. He lives in Cornwall, England, with his wife, Marion. According to the Williamson Source, he flew back to the United States for a rare concert at the Franklin Theatre in Tennessee on May 22, 2026.
Is Judy Norton still alive?
Judy Norton played Mary Ellen Walton, the headstrong eldest daughter who fought her way into a nursing career. In 1985 she posed for Playboy, reportedly to shake off her wholesome Walton image.
She has spent the years since writing, directing and starring in her own film and stage projects. She also records music. In July 2020 she launched a YouTube channel called “Behind the Scenes with Judy Norton,” which has grown to hundreds of videos about the show and its cast. She recently shared the one thing she wishes she had told Earl Hamner Jr. while she still had the chance.
Yes, Judy Norton is still alive. Born on January 29, 1958, in Santa Monica, California, she is 68. A September 2026 interview carried by Yahoo covered her studio recording work and her newest creative projects.
Is Eric Scott still alive?
Eric Scott played Ben Walton, the hot-headed middle son who later went into the lumber business with his father. Scott has never been precious about the part. “Ben, honestly, was an idiot,” he told That’s Classic in a March 2026 interview, as reported by Parade.
When the series ended, roles dried up. He tried retail for about a year and then took a job driving for a messenger company. That job became his future. He now owns Chase Messengers, a delivery service in Encino, California. His life has also held deep loss. His second wife, Theresa Fargo, died of leukemia in 1992, two days after giving birth to their daughter. He married Cindy Ullman Wolfen in 2000.
Yes, Eric Scott is still alive. Born on October 20, 1958, in Los Angeles, he is 67 and turns 68 in just a few days. He still appears at Walton gatherings across the country.
Is Mary McDonough still alive?
Mary Elizabeth McDonough played Erin Walton, the romantic middle daughter who worked the switchboard and dreamed of a bigger life. She stayed with the role from the start of the series to the finale and into the reunion movies.
In later years she became an author and a public speaker. Her memoir, Lessons from the Mountain: What I Learned from Erin Walton, came out in 2011. Her novel Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane became a Hallmark movie in 2018, and she took a small role in it. She has lived with lupus and has spoken publicly about her belief that it was tied to her silicone breast implants. She also hosted A Walton Family Reunion for INSP and kept acting in films such as Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (2024).
Yes, Mary McDonough is still alive. Born on May 4, 1961, in Van Nuys, California, she is 65. In January 2026, Parade reported on a public message of support she shared on Instagram.
Is David W. Harper still alive?
David W. Harper played Jim-Bob Walton, the youngest son, who loved airplanes and engines. He was with the role from the 1971 TV movie through all nine seasons.
Harper chose a quiet life after Hollywood. He worked as a scenic painter in Los Angeles. Later he took a job at the messenger service run by his TV brother Eric Scott, and then he went back to school to study business. Eventually, Jim-Bob went from TV star to delivery driver.
Yes, David W. Harper is still alive. Born on October 4, 1961, in Abilene, Texas, he turned 65 just this month. Judy Norton posted a birthday tribute to him on her YouTube channel this year, and he still joins the cast at reunions and memorabilia fairs.
Is Kami Cotler still alive?
Kami Cotler played Elizabeth, the baby of the family, who grew up on screen over nine seasons. She cut back on acting to study social sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.
She then built a second career in education. In the 1990s she taught for five years in Nelson County, Virginia, the same county where Earl Hamner Jr. grew up. Back in California, she taught at Environmental Charter High School and co-directed Ocean Charter School. She went on to become the founding principal of Environmental Charter Middle School. Fans got a rare look at her this spring in a sighting around Los Angeles.
Yes, Kami Cotler is still alive. Born on June 17, 1965, in Long Beach, California, she is 61. According to Soap Central, she was photographed running errands in Los Angeles in May 2026. In January she promoted tickets for the fan event “The Waltons in the Smokies.”
Is Richard Thomas still alive?
Richard Thomas played John-Boy Walton, the eldest son who wrote down everything that happened on the mountain and narrated the family’s story. He won the 1973 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He left the show after five seasons and said he always knew he would move on.
He never stopped working. He played the grown-up Bill Denbrough in the 1990 miniseries of Stephen King’s It and FBI agent Frank Gaad on The Americans. He has spent much of his life on stage. Beginning in 2022, he played Atticus Finch in the national tour of To Kill a Mockingbird. In 2024, he returned to Broadway in Our Town. He also came home to the mountain as the narrator of the new TV movies The Waltons’ Homecoming (2021) and A Waltons Thanksgiving (2022). He is the father of seven, including triplet daughters born in 1981.
Yes, Richard Thomas is still alive. Born on June 13, 1951, in Manhattan, he turned 75 this June. According to Broadway.com, he earned a 2026 Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for The Balusters. The Tony ceremony fell just six days before his 75th birthday.
