Though the series was well received critically, it was not a ratings success and lasted only two partial seasons. Learned starred as Nurse Mary Benjamin in the hospital drama Nurse, which ran on CBS for six episodes in spring 1981 and then for the 1981–1982 seasons. She later appeared in Power (1986) and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993), and well as number of made-for-television movies. Learned made her big screen debut in 1980, playing the supporting role in the drama film Touched by Love. During her run as Olivia Walton, Learned and The Waltons co-star, Will Geer, appeared together in the 1974 made-for-TV movie Hurricane. For her portrayal of Olivia Walton, Learned was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards. She made occasional guest appearances until the show's cancelation and later appeared in four of the six Waltons reunion movies made during the 1980s and 1990s. Her character's abrupt disappearance was explained by Olivia developing tuberculosis and entering a sanatorium in Arizona. After the seventh season she left the show. After the end of the sixth season, she agreed to appear for one more season on the condition that she would not have to work the full nine months. She was nominated for six Emmy Awards as Lead Actress in a Drama, winning three times. By the sixth season, as the show continued its success after the departure of co-star Richard Thomas, producers' fear of confusion about her sex had been alleviated and the "Miss" was removed from Learned's billing. For the first five seasons of the show she was billed as "Miss Michael Learned" because she was relatively unknown at the time and producers wished to avoid confusion among viewers about her gender. Her first substantial role in either film or television was as Olivia Walton on The Waltons, which ran for nine seasons from 1972 to 1981. During this time, she discovered the theater and decided to make acting her life's work. At this time, she attended Arts Educational School, Tring, now Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Tring, Hertfordshire, England. When she was 11, Learned moved to Austria, where her father worked for the U.S. Learned said that her parents never explained why she received a masculine first name, once saying of her father: "All he told me was that if I had been a boy, I would have been named Caleb, but I was a girl, so I was called Michael." She lived on a Connecticut farm for the first 10 years of her life. She has five younger sisters: Gretl, Susan, Sabra, Dorit and Philippa. Her maternal grandfather was an attaché for the United States Embassy in Rome. Learned was born in Washington, D.C., the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Duane "Betti" (née Hooper) and Bruce Learned, a diplomat. Three of the wins were for The Waltons (1973, 1974, 1976), while the other was for Nurse (1982). She has won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series four times, which is tied for the record of most wins with Tyne Daly. Cotler is a past board member of the American Montessori Society.Michael Learned (born April 9, 1939) is an American actress, known for her role as Olivia Walton in the long-running CBS drama series The Waltons (1972–1981). She served as the founding Principal of Environmental Charter Middle School, an educational facility in southern Los Angeles County, California. In 2004, Cotler accepted the job as co-director of the Ocean Charter School, a position held until 2007 when she started her own educational consulting business. Cotler returned to California in 2001 and took a position teaching 9th grade at Environmental Charter High School. Her first teaching job, coincidentally, took her to a small rural Virginia school in the Blue Ridge Mountains, much like the fictional one she attended on The Waltons. She is best known for her role as young Elizabeth Walton, which she played in the series The Waltons, and the television film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971) which inspired it, as well as a number of later Waltons reunion productions.Ĭotler significantly reduced her acting roles for many years while she attended University of California, Berkeley, earning a degree in Social Sciences. Kami Cotler (born June 17, 1965) is an American actress and educator. She went on to also star in the Walton reunion in 2010. Actress who played young Elizabeth Walton on the popular TV series The Waltons.
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