From Walton’s Mountain to Making Peace with a Spiritual Mountain: Mary McDonough of ‘The Waltons’ Shares Her Story

Mary McDonough played Erin Walton on the landmark TV show ‘The Waltons.’ She talks about her spiritual journey, how she transcended her body image issues, and why ‘The Waltons’  remains so popular

Also revealed: what she does and doesn’t have in common with her TV character Erin, what James Taylor song has inspired her over the years, and how she’d like to make a final Waltons reunion movie to have closure on the TV family’s story

I can finally accept my mountain and where I am today, look back and learn from the people I loved and the lessons I learned traveling its many paths.”
— Mary McDonough in Lessons From The Mountain.

Mary McDonough’s Lessons From the Mountain isn’t the typical celebrity memoir.

The book is just as much an account of her decades-long spiritual journey as it is a look back at her TV and movie career — which included playing Erin Walton on the TV show The Waltons for nine seasons.

Sure, she tells plenty of behind-the-scenes stories about The Waltons that will entertain fans. Did you know that Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton) practiced yoga? Or that Elton John was a huge fan of the show and visited the Waltons set? Or that McDonough was one of the finalists for the lead role in the movie The Exorcist? There’s lots of fun information. Especially for the diehard fans — like me — go ahead, just ask me about any episode.

But at the center of the book is a spiritual search. It started when McDonough was young and disturbed by an image of God she picked up in Catholic school.

“I felt God was unyielding and unforgiving… It seemed no matter how ‘good’ I was, I would never be enough for God,” she writes.

That contributed toward her feeling inadequate. It combined with other issues such as yo-yo dieting, body image issues, and insecurity.

Life got particularly rough for McDonough after The Waltons was cancelled in 1981. In the Big Hair Big Everything era of Dallas and Dynasty, she tried to reinvent her image by getting breast implants when she was 22. Sadly, as she recounts in her book, that wasn’t necessary for the roles she did receive. And worse, she developed health problems she believes are linked to the implants.

But she developed her spirituality to help pull herself out of her slump. She made peace with the Catholicism of her youth and explored Eastern philosophy and Buddhism. She ultimately found a connection with a higher power she feels is compassionate and loving.

Inspired by some spiritual lessons from her father, she became an activist. She testified with many other women including actress Sally Kirkland before the FDA about the dangers of silicone breast implants. In recent years she’s become a life coach and runs workshops for young women to raise their self-esteem and discuss body image issues — which she outlines on her web site.

Working out a spiritual path in her book is somewhat similar to the spirituality on her famous TV show.

The Waltons was a groundbreaking show because of its combination of spirituality and religion. There was tension between John Walton’s spirituality and Olivia’s traditional Baptist religion. In several episodes that conflict had to be resolved. The best of these spiritually-themed shows contain a deep and realistic presentation of religion and spirituality we may never see again on a network TV show.

In a phone interview from her California home, McDonough talked about her career, her activism, and her spiritual path. Much like the tone of her book, she was open, funny, and reflective about her journey.

I loved your book because it was about a spiritual journey as well as a book about your acting career. Did you have the intention from the beginning to have it be partly about a spiritual journey or did it just turn out that way?

It kind of turned out that way. As you start to write and organize things, you start at the beginning and you go through and you realize the true line.

My purpose for writing the book was to help people, so no one felt the way I did. And to shine some light on it that all of us are in this together, we’re not alone.

My spiritual journey was definitely part of those lessons that I learned. So it just became a natural unfolding to include it in the book. And how I went thorough my battle with spirituality as well as finding something that was more peaceful and more kind and loving than how I was raised.

It’s interesting that on ‘The Waltons’ spirituality needed to be worked out too. John and Grandpa could be categorized as spiritual but not religious and Olivia and Esther were traditional Baptist. And on some shows there was conflict about it they had negotiate. Did you notice that on the show at the time?

It must have had some kind of influence on me in some way. But we were always kids going to church every Sunday and behaving. So I think being a Baptist on the show and being a Catholic in real life were much more similar for me.

The Grandpa and John Walton philosophies or beliefs came to me much later in life. That there might be something other than these strict rules. And certainly for me the strict rules that I was raised with were hurtful to me and made me frightened and scared instead of there being a kind loving God. So yeah, in a way it must have been in there somewhere.

So many people know you from playing Erin Walton. In what ways were you similar to the character and in which ways were you different?

I’m very similar to her and different in a lot of ways. Obviously I played her through my growing up. So she embodied my body as I grew. But Erin is a little bit more staid than I am. I think I’m a little more kooky wacky fun.

And I noticed it when we went back to do the movies. I noticed that suddenly I had a different cadence to the way I was speaking, I stood a different way and I walked a different way. And I realized that I just had put on Erin. She’s a little slower than I am in how she speaks and thinks. And I think I’m a little more high energy level.

You were just 10 years old when you started playing Erin. Did you think of her character and what she was all about and her motivations at such a young age?

Not as a kid. We were encouraged just to be kids. And I think we were cast because of how we acted and what we looked like and how our personalities were. Erin was the sensitive one. I certainly was a sensitive one as well. So they just wanted us to be how we were.

Then as we grew into teenagers, I actually started to take acting classes and become more aware of the character and the dialect and how she was based on the story lines they had written for her.

I always thought of Erin as a seeker and I wonder if you did too. There was the episode when she graduated from high school and she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do compared to her brothers and sisters who were so certain. And she was frequently looking for the right romantic partner, trying to find her place.

I love that you say that about her. I think she was. I think part of it was she was seeking her purpose and role in life very similar to me.

Erin and I both struggled with our identities in a large family being middle daughters. And what purpose we serve in the world and within our families.

And I think she was always looking for what was going to define her because people said that she was pretty and that really was not enough.

Her vanity was something she was sort of punished for in a way. Grandma would look down on her in the beauty contest that she lost and think that was right and just. So I think she was a seeker in a lot of ways, trying to find her value.