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The Waltons was one of the most-watched shows on TV in the ‘70. The CBS series about a large family making do during the Great Depression aired for nine seasons. But despite the show’s popularity, the cast wasn’t necessarily bringing home big bucks.
‘The Waltons’ cast member Eric Scott says he and his fellow stars didn’t ‘get rich from that show’
Some of The Waltons cast members were well-compensated for their work on the series. Ralph Waite, who played the family patriarch John Walton, was earning $10,000 per week by 1977. He called that salary “obscene” in an interview with People. But the actors who played John Walton’s kids weren’t taking home nearly as much money.
“We did not get rich from that show,” Eric Scott, who played Ben Walton, told Closer Weekly in 2017.
Scott added that he felt the studio, Lorimar, didn’t appreciate the younger members of the cast.
“It was disappointing that no one even called to say, ‘By the way, thank you.’ We were loved by the public, but we never felt the studio appreciated us,” the actor said.
Mary McDonough said ‘The Waltons’ producers were ‘cheap’
Mary McDonough, who played Erin Walton, has also commented on Lorimar’s stinginess. She realized how little The Waltons cast was being paid when she took another job on the 1981 made-for-TV movie Midnight Offerings.
“I found out how generous a production company could be,” she recalled in her 2011 memoir Lessons From the Mountain. “I had heard Lorimar was frugal, as evidenced in our salaries – cheap, cheap!”
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McDonough said that compared to other young actors at the time, she and her Waltons co-stars were underpaid.
“To give you an idea, Willie Aames, as Tommy Bradford on Eight Is Enough, made more in his first year than I did in my sixth,” she wrote.
Kami Cotler said her ‘Waltons’ residuals aren’t enough to live on, but are always a ‘nice surprise’
Neither McDonough nor Scott revealed specific details about how much they earned for appearing on The Waltons. But Kami Cotler, who played Elizabeth Walton, has said their salaries barely budged over the show’s lengthy run.
“We were paid per episode and it didn’t matter whether we had a big or little part,” she shared on Facebook in 2020. “We each signed a six-year contract, so the success of the show had no impact on our salaries. Each year there was a slight increase. When a child actor turns 18, the contract has to be renegotiated, and I think we each got raises when we became adults, as a result.”
The success of The Waltons gave some people the idea that all of the show’s actors were swimming in cash, Cotler added. While that wasn’t the case, she did build up a nice nest egg during her time on the show. And even now, decades after the series went off the air, modest residuals continue to roll in.
“When I was a kid, people would tell me things like, ‘You’ll never have to work again!’ While that was quite an exaggeration, I was able to save money starting at a very young age and I was especially lucky because my Mom is very sensible and smart with money,” Cotler explained. “Nowadays the residual money varies, never enough to live on, but always a nice surprise when it comes in the mail!”
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