“Arrested Development” actor dies
LOS A NGELES» Jessica Walter, whose roles as a scheming matriarch in TV’s “Arrested Development” and a stalker in “Play Misty for Me” were in line with a career that drew on her astringent screen presence more than her good looks, has died. She was 80.
Walter’s death was confirmed Thursday by her daughter, Brooke Bowman, an entertainment industry executive. A cause of death and other details were not provided.
“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of my beloved mom, Jessica. A working actor for over six decades, her greatest pleasure was bringing joy to others through her storytelling both on screen and off,” Bowman said.
Walter will be well-remembered for “her wit, class and overall joie de vivre,” her daughter added.
“She was a force, and her talent and timing were unmatched,” Tony Hale, her “Arrested Development” costar said on Twitter.
“I loved you Jessica Walter. I grew up watching you AND admiring you. Always consistently excellent,” Viola Davis tweeted.
Although Walter’s photogenic appearance qualified her for standard leading lady roles, she claimed no regrets about being viewed as a character actor.
She loved playing difficult women because “those are the fun roles. They’re juicy, much better than playing the vanilla ingénues,” Walter said in an AV Club interview.
Her most memorable film part was in Clint Eastwood’s 1971 thriller “Play Misty For Me” — her first significant lead — in which she plays Evelyn Draper, the woman who becomes obsessed with Eastwood’s disc jockey character. Walter was widely praised for her unnerving performance.
A Roger Ebert review compared her to “something like flypaper; the more you struggle against her personality, the more tightly you’re held.”
Walter’s comedic flair as the deeply flawed mom of a dysfunctional family in “Arrested Development” won her a new generation of fans.
Younger viewers also discovered her gifts in “Archer,” in which she played a petty, martini-swilling spymaster whose deeply dysfunctional relationship with her title character son was the subject of most of the show’s early plots when it launched in 2009.
Walter earned an Emmy for best actress in a limited series in 1975 for “Amy Prentiss,” in which she played the title character, the first woman to become chief of detectives in the San Francisco Police Department.