Career
She appeared in the first episode of Flipper in September 1964. Also in 1964, she guest starred with Jack Lord, Nick Adams, and Herb Edelman in the episode "How Much for a Prince?" of CBS's short-lived drama The Reporter, with Harry Guardino in the title role. Walter had a recurring role on Trapper John, M.D. as Melanie McIntyre, Trapper John's former wife. In 1966 she appeared in an episode of The Fugitive entitled "The White Knight".
Her earliest notable film role was in the 1971 movie Play Misty for Me, in which she played a young woman with borderline personality disorder stalking a disc jockey (played by Clint Eastwood in his directorial debut), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination in the Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama category. Walter's other film credits from that era include Lilith, Grand Prix, The Group, Bye Bye Braverman, Number One and Dr. Strange.
In 1974, Walter co-starred with Peter Falk, Jose Ferrer and Lew Ayres in the Columbo episode "Mind Over Mayhem." During the 1974-75 TV season, she was the star of Amy Prentiss, a spinoff of Ironside that became an element of the NBC Mystery Movie. She was the producers' first choice for the role of "Alexis Carrington" in the primetime soap opera Dynasty. In 1983, she had a role in the short-lived NBC primetime soap opera Bare Essence as "Ava Marshall".
Since then, she has worked most frequently in television and theater, though she did make an appearance in the 1994 film PCU. In the 1990s, Walter voiced Fran Sinclair on the ABC comedy Dinosaurs, and appeared on Just Shoot Me! as Eve Gallo, the mother of Maya and the ex-wife of magazine publisher Jack Gallo (George Segal).
From 2003 to 2006, she appeared in a regular role as the scheming, alcoholic socialite matriarch Lucille Bluth on FOX's critically acclaimed comedy series, Arrested Development. Despite her convincing portrayal of Lucille (in 2005, Walter received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the role), the actress has maintained that "I'm nothing like Lucille. Nothing. My daughter will tell you. I'm really a very nice, boring person." Walter played Tabitha Wilson, a similar character, on 90210, for the first thirteen episodes of the first season, before she was written off. She also guest starred on the situational comedy Rules of Engagement in the Season 1, Episode 5 "Kids". She currently voices spy boss Malory on the FX network's animated show Archer.
Walter guest-starred in an episode of Law & Order: SVU in the fall of 2009. Walter appeared in the third episode, which is titled "Solitary," as a legal-aid powerhouse named Petra Gilmartin.
She recently starred as Evangeline Harcourt in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes, which began previews in March 2011 and officially opened on April 7, 2011.
Read more about this topic: Jessica Walter
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)