Remembering Jessica Walter

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last month, the actor Jessica Walter died. She was 80 years old, her family says she passed away in her sleep. Her career spanned over six decades. She's starred in hundreds of on screen performances, from Arrested Development, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Love Boat, and Trapper John, M.D. to a starring role in Clint Eastwood's directorial debut Play Misty for Me. We're taking a moment to remember the brilliant Jessica Walter by revisiting our conversation from 2014. At the time she was promoting the latest season of the animated show Archer. She talked about her voice work on the program, her love of Lucille Bluth and working with Clint Eastwood.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:10.0	It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Ford.
0:21.4	Jessica Walter died last month.
0:23.4	She was 80 years old.
0:24.8	Her family says she passed away in her sleep.
0:27.6	In a career that spanned over 60 years, she played more than 120 parts on screen.
0:34.6	So the odds are, you've seen Jessica Walter in something.
0:39.2	Maybe it was as Lucille Bluth on her rest of development, or opposite Clint Eastwood
0:44.0	and play Misty for me.
0:45.8	Or maybe you heard her voice as Mallory Archer on the animated show Archer.
0:50.0	It's a personal favorite of mine.
0:52.1	You'll hear more about her many, many credits in a second.
0:55.5	We're going to replay my 2014 interview with Jessica Walter.
0:59.5	But I just want to say that she was an absolute treasure.
1:03.2	It was such an honor to speak with her and she was as generous and kind and warm as you
1:09.5	could hope from her performances.
1:12.1	Anyway, here we go.
1:13.8	From 2014, my interview with the late Jessica Walter.
1:22.4	It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.
1:24.4	The casting call for the part of Mallory Archer on FX's animated comedy Archer said the
1:29.3	creators were looking for, this is a quote, a Jessica Walter on arrested development type.
1:35.1	So needless to say, when Jessica Walter from Arrested Development's agent got it, she
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.