For an entire decade beginning in 1971, the popular TV show The Waltons was a fixture of American culture. The historical drama took place in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and told the story of the Walton family, a wholesome brood who exuded family values while enduring the Great Depression and World War II. "One of the great things about the show was that it brought people together," Richard Thomas, who played the Waltons' son, John-Boy, told Deadline. "Young people could see a story about older people, and older people could remember their childhood," he said, perfectly distilling the show's appeal.
This November, the series is slated for a reboot on The CW, and nostalgic fans are excited to revisit some of their favorite characters from the show. Among them is the eldest daughter in the family, Mary Ellen, originally played by the actress Judy Norton. Today, it's been 40 years since Norton last portrayed Mary Ellen, but she's still connecting with her fans—and she's found new passions to explore, too. Read on to see Judy Norton now and to find out how she's keeping The Waltons alive!
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She now hosts her own YouTube channel about the show.
Brian To/FilmMagic via Getty ImagesNorton now hosts Behind the Scenes with The Waltons, a YouTube series about the beloved '70s show. There, she shares her memories of the making of The Waltons and answers fans' questions in a segment she calls "Ask Judy."
The actress says this has been an exciting way for her to re-engage with her work on the series after so many decades away from it. "With the show having filmed all these episodes between 40 and 50 years ago sometimes it's a little vague for me. I was a teenager when we started, so many of these episodes I have not watched for years and years. So it's been fun for me to go back and watch them again, remember different things about them, and I'm starting to put the puzzle pieces together," she said during one "Ask Judy" segment.
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She continued acting after her nine seasons on The Waltons.
David Livingston/Getty ImagesThough Norton is not involved in the reboot of The Waltons ("I wonder who will be playing me!" she mused during one "Ask Judy" segment), she has continued acting ever since the show wrapped. She even had the chance to reprise her role as Mary Ellen: between 1982 and 1997, Norton appeared in at least six spin-off TV movies of The Waltons.
She also branched out into other televised series, including The Love Boat, Millennium, Stargate SG-1, Cold Squad, Beggars and Choosers, Disorganized Zone, Bluff, and more. Most recently, she has appeared as herself on a comedy web series called The Quarantine Bunch, a fictionalized "support group for former child actors" shot via Zoom during the pandemic. Besides Norton, the show features Keith Coogan (Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead), Dean McDermott (Rusty Makes Five), Jeremy Miller (Growing Pains), Danny Pintauro (Who's the Boss?), Scott Schwartz (A Christmas Story) and Melissa Disney (Tarzana).
She's also a writer, director, musician, and horse enthusiast.
Tommaso Boddi/WireImage via Getty ImagesSince The Waltons wrapped, Norton has made it a priority to explore her other interests outside of acting, too. Throughout the years, she has written and directed staged theater performances and served as a co-artistic director on over 40 shows for a theater in Winnipeg, Canada.
Additionally, Norton shares on her website that since first singing for an audience at the age of six, she has embraced music as one of her great passions. Professionally, she has worked on "musical theatre, concert performances, USO tours and even the occasional foray into the recording studio."
Norton also shared with Outsider that she has a passion for horses and horseback riding—and it all began thanks to her work on The Waltons. "I got into riding horses and jumping horses, which I loved," Norton said. "No one else in my family had been involved with horses at all. I got interested because of a costumer I worked with on the Waltons who took me to a horse show and took me out to see her horse," she explained.
Norton says her real life has often reminded her of The Waltons.
Bennett Raglin/Getty ImagesIn a strange twist, Norton says that her real life has included many serendipitous nods to her time on The Waltons—and oddly, they all have to do with real estate.
The actress told Closer Weekly in 2016 that her home in Glendale, California strangely resembles the "rustic mountainside retreat" that the Waltons lived in on the show. "I've had a lot of coincidences like that in my life," she told the magazine. "When I got cast on The Waltons, I was living on Mary Ellen Avenue—that was a little weird. Then, when we first rented in L.A., we were living on Waltonia Avenue. I remember thinking, 'I can't do this!'" she recalled, laughing. "And when we were first house hunting in Glendale I heard there was a lovely house for sale on Norton. I said, 'No, I'm not going there!'"
The show may have wrapped, but clearly, its legacy lives on with the actress.
