Michael Learned: From Olivia Walton to Acclaimed Actress
Michael Learned (born April 9, 1939) is an American actress who has achieved national recognition and won three Emmy Awards for her long-running role in The Waltons. She is most known for her role as Olivia Walton in the long-running CBS drama series The Waltons (1972-1981). Learned has won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series four times, which is tied for the record of most wins with Tyne Daly.
Early Life and Education
Learned was born in Washington, D.C., the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Duane "Betti" (née Hooper) and Bruce Learned, a diplomat. Her maternal grandfather was an attaché for the United States Embassy in Rome (Italy). She has five younger sisters: Gretl, Susan, Sabra, Dorit and Philippa. She lived on a Connecticut farm for the first 10 years of her life. Department of State. At this time, she attended Arts Educational School, Tring, (now the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Tring, Hertfordshire, England, (United Kingdom).
Career
Early Stage Work
Prior to starring in The Waltons, she won acclaim as a classical stage actress, playing the leading roles in Under Milkwood, Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Private Lives. In the late 1960s, Learned and her husband Peter Donat appeared in various roles with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California. She has starred off-Broadway in The Three Sisters and in A God Slept Here, in numerous productions for the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, and with the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada.
The Waltons (1972-1981)
Her first substantial role in either film / motion pictures or television was as the character Olivia Walton, the mother and wife of John Walton, Sr. on The Waltons drama / nostalgia television series, which ran for nine seasons from 1972 to 1981. For the first five seasons of the show she was billed as "Miss Michael Learned" because she was relatively unknown at the time and producers wished to avoid confusion among viewers about her gender, that her "Michael" was a woman's name). By the sixth season, as the show continued its success after the departure of co-star Richard Thomas (born 1951), these fears of confusion about her sex had been alleviated and the "Miss" was dropped from Learned's billing in the credits. She was nominated for six Emmy Awards as Lead Actress in a Drama, winning three times.
After the end of the sixth season, she agreed to appear for one more season on the condition that she would not have to work the full nine months schedule. After the seventh season she left the show. Her character's abrupt disappearance in Season 7 was explained by Olivia developing tuberculosis and entering a sanatorium in hot and dry Arizona. She returned briefly in Season 8 and later appeared in four of the six subsequent Waltons sequel / reunion made-for-TV films and specials made, with three during 1982 and during the 1990s (1993, 1995 and 1997). For her portrayal of Olivia Walton, Learned was also nominated for four Golden Globe Awards. The Waltons TV series was a spin-off of the movie The Homecoming. Overwhelmingly popular, it appeared on CBS for nine seasons, from 1972 to 1981. Goodnight John-Boy, Goodnight Mary Ellen, Goodnight Jason, Goodnight Elizabeth, Goodnight Jim-Bob, Goodnight Ben, Goodnight Erin and Goodnight Ma.
Read also: From Injury to Stardom: Penix Jr.
Subsequent Television Roles
Learned made her big screen debut in 1980, playing the supporting role in the drama film Touched by Love. She later appeared in Power (1986) and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993), and well as number of made-for-television movies. Learned starred as Nurse Mary Benjamin in the hospital drama Nurse, which ran on the CBS-TV network for six episodes in the spring 1981 and then for the following 1981-1982 seasons. Though the series was well received critically, it was not a big ratings success and lasted only two partial seasons. Nevertheless, Learned was nominated for two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress and won yet another Emmy for this role in 1982.
She later had starring roles in the unsuccessful 1988 series drama Hothouse and the 1989 sitcom Living Dolls and reprised her Waltons role for a number of television movies and reunions in the 1990s. In 1995, during the second season of The Secret World of Alex Mack, she guest-starred as a ghost who regretted the decisions of her long-estranged granddaughter, revealed at the end to be the show's main villain, Danielle Atron (Louan Gideon). In 2005, Learned played Judge Helen Turner on the ABC-TV network's daytime soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live as part of the "baby switch" storyline on both shows. She guest-starred in Scrubs as Mrs. Wilk in five episodes from the show's fifth season. She played Shirley Smith on ABC's other long-running soap opera General Hospital in 2010.
Stage Work After The Waltons
After leaving The Waltons, she returned to the stage in a tour of Dear Liar, followed by starring roles in Mary Stuart at the Ahmanson Theatre, A Month In the Country at the Mark Taper Forum, Neil Simon’s Actors and Actresses at the Hartman Theatre, and Loves of Anatol and The Time of the Cuckoo in New York. She has appeared in many stage productions on Broadway, off Broadway, and elsewhere, including the 2006-2007 national touring production of On Golden Pond. In the fall of 2008, she starred in Innovation Theatre Works' production of Driving Miss Daisy, playing the title role of retired Atlanta, Georgia school teacher Daisy Werthen, opposite Willis Burks II as Hoke and Dirk Blocker as Daisy's son Boolie. She reprised the role opposite Lance E.
Personal Life
Learned has been married four times. Her first husband was Canadian-American actor Peter Donat (1928-2018), whom she married in 1956 when she was 17 years old. The marriage was dissolved 16 years later in 1972. She had three sons by that marriage, one of whom is actor and business executive Lucas Donat (born 1962). Her second marriage, to Glen Chadwick, lasted only from 1974 to 1976 and also ended in divorce. In 1979, she married actor-screenwriter William Parker. That marriage ended in divorce as well.
In a 2002 article she wrote for the Daily Word, a publication of the Unity Church, Learned states that at the time she was cast in The Waltons in 1971, she had "hit rock bottom". Then, at age 32, Learned realized she was an alcoholic. Taking herself to former husband Peter Donat's remote cabin on the California coast, she decided to "get sober" and that her time there was the beginning of a spiritual journey.
Read also: UCLA's Progress Under Michael Beck
Read also: The Beginning of the Air Jordan Era
tags: #Michael #Learned #biography
