Celebrity Biographies
Jessica Walker
He stalked Clint Eastwood in the hit “Chill in the Night.” Jessica Walter passed away on March 24, 2021 in New York at the age of 80. “Jessica Walter’s spectacular turn as the devilish Lucille Bluth was one of the great comedic performances in television history, and we loved working with her as much as the audience loved her on the series ‘Arrested Development.’ Our hearts go out to us.” …and we are with her family and friends, particularly her daughter. We know heaven has become so much more fun with Jessica now there,” a statement from 21st Century Fox Television said.
Born on January 31, 1941, Jessica Walter was the daughter of a Jewish musician with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and an immigrant from the then Soviet Union. “I’m not very religious but I feel very Jewish in my heart,” she declared. She studied acting at the High School of Performing Arts in her city. She made her Broadway debut with Peter Ustinv, in “Photo Finish,” for which she received the 1963 Clarence Derwent Award for Best Newcomer.
Jessica Walter began her television career with the series Love of Life , and appears occasionally in hit series such as The Fugitive and Alfred Hitchcock Presents . On film, her most memorable work was in Chill in the Night , where she played a woman with borderline personality disorder who falls in love with a radio host, played by Clint Eastwood . She received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, and critical acclaim. “She has a disconcerting effectiveness,” Roger Ebert wrote of her in the Chicago Suntimes. She also appeared on the big screen in titles like The Flamingo Kid and Don’t Yell at Me I Don’t See You .
Divorced from Ross Bowman, stage director with whom she had a daughter, Brooke Bowman – an executive of the aforementioned 21st Century Fox Television–, Jessica Walter she teamed up with fellow actor Ron Leibman until his death in 2019. They appeared together in Neil Simon’s play “Rumors,” and played married couples in the feature film Dummy (2003) and the series Law & Order .
In the last moments of her career, she stood out as the alcoholic matriarch Lucille Bluth in the Fox comedy Arrested Development , a character that unleashed laughs. “I’m not like Lucille. Nothing. My daughter can tell. I’m a really nice but boring person,” Jessica Walter explained .