Does anyone else think that Judy Norton is a terrible actress? Ive started to watch the series from the beginning and her performance is really annoying. The rest of the kids seem so natural, even Elizabeth the youngest child, but she acts like she is reading her lines from a prompter. I'm hoping as the series get farther along that her acting skills improve.
She gets worse as she gets older. At least when she was younger, she was animated. Later on, her line readings are flat and wooden. It really hurt the series because they needed a strong female lead after Michael Learned left.
shareShe also wore blush and fake eyelashes as the series progressed. So much for a fresh-faced country girl!
shareThe need was more pronounced than that as Ellen Corby was pretty well phased out at the same time as well as losing her edge with her stroke.
shareI've thought about this for a while now and I would say that the character was taken in the wrong direction as the series progressed. I would have liked to have seen a fair amount of Grandma Walton in her once she reached adulthood. Maybe Hamner went in the direction he did with Mary Ellen as maybe he thought that Norton-Taylor did not have the acting chops of Ellen Corby.
shareYeah, Ellen Corby always played busybodies, and Mary Ellen disrobed for Playboy. I can see the difference.
shareIt would have been interesting if Corby had leading lady looks to see what kind of roles she could have landed. I thought Corby did well with one of her few opportunities to play something other than little old lady characters such as she did on The Andy Griffith show and Gomer Pyle USMC. Norton-Taylor doing a Playboy spread did nothing for her career. Having Mary Ellen enter a relationship similar to what Grandma and Grandpa Walton had would have been far better than watch her playing wife to Curt Willard.
shareGood, I'm glad it wasn't just me!
Mary Ellen was too much of a drama queen.
Judy must have thought her Waltons image was hampering her acting career after the show was cancelled; did she really think posing nude in Playboy would help? Now she's doing dinner theater in Canada.
The evil in this world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. - Ayn Rand
Where in Canada is she doing theater? I'd like to go see her!
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