Jessica Walter, star of TV shows and films movies from “Arrested Development” to “Play Misty for Me,” died Wednesday in New York City, her representative, Kelli Jones, affirmed. She was 80.
“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of my beloved mom Jessica,” said her daughter Brooke Bowman in a statement. “A working actor for over six decades, her greatest pleasure was bringing joy to others through her storytelling both on screen and off. While her legacy will live on through her body of work, she will also be remembered by many for her wit, class and overall joie de vivre.”
Walter had a long, prolific career in Hollywood, most as of late in comedies like “Arrested Development,” which broadcasted on Fox and later, Netflix, where she acquired armies of fans as snarky, highbrow female authority Lucille Bluth. “As far as I’m concerned, we can never push things enough,” Walter disclosed to USA TODAY of the limit pushing sitcom in 2005. “We try to do it all with class and elegance.”
She voiced another conniving mother, Malory Archer, to the title superhero character in FXX’s animated adult comedy “Archer.”
Her occasional “Arrested” co-star Henry Winkler responded to her demise on Twitter, expressing “OH NO …We worked together for years on ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT ..It was an honor to watch her comedy explode from the very first row.”
Walter began her career in 1960s showing up in TV guest roles in series, for example, “Flipper” and “Ben Casey.” But her large breakout part was in the 1971 film “Misty,” as the over the top fanatic of Clint Eastwood’s radio DJ, for which she was assigned for a Golden Globe. Walter has turned out consistently for over 50 years in TV, film and on Broadway.
She has guest-starred on countless series, from “The Love Boat” to “NCIS” to “Murder She Wrote.” Walter won an Emmy in 1975 as lead actress in an uncommon program for her role as San Francisco’s first female head of analysts in NBC’s miniseries, “Amy Prentiss.” She was named three additional occasions, for ABC’s “The Streets of San Francisco” in 1977; CBS’ “Catcher John, M.D.” in 1980; and for “Arrested” in 2005. She most as of late showed up in February, on a Season 5 scene of ABC sitcom “American Housewife.”
Walter’s feature debut was in the 1964 film “Lilith,” with Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg and Gene Hackman, who was additionally on his first film.
She additionally caught a role in John Frankenheimer’s dashing epic “Great Prix,” from 1966, as the spectacular however malcontented spouse of a Formula One racer who succumbs to another driver. That very year she showed up in Sidney Lumet’s “The Group,” a female-drove troupe about the alumni of a prestigious university (Walter played the catty Libby), and represented Lumet again in 1968’s “Bye Bye Braverman.”
Other notable credits remember a spell for CW’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” spin-off “90210” and voicing Fran Sinclair in 1990s Jim Henson family comedy, “Dinosaurs.”
In 2018 Walter stood out as truly newsworthy when she revealed in a emotional interview that her “Arrested” co-star Jeffrey Tambor verbally harassed her on the set of the comedy.
“I have to let go of being angry at him,” she said during a New York Times group interview with her castmates. “He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever. Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologize.” She added that in “almost 60 years of working, I’ve never had anybody yell at me like that on a set, and it’s hard to deal with, but I’m over it now. I just let it go right here.”
Walter’s husband of 36 years, entertainer and her frequent artistic collaborator Ron Leibman, died in December 2019 at 82. Her girl, Bowman, from her first marriage, is a chief at Fox Entertainment.