Michael Learned - Emmy-Winning Actress Bravely Shares Her Struggles and Secrets to Longevity in the Arts

In this day and age of everything going digital, and especially with zoom becoming an important part of both personal and professional connections, it’s a very rare moment to have a phone interview. But back in August of 2021 I had the privilege of calling up a wonderfully talented actress both on stage and on screen, four-time Emmy winner Michael Learned. Though she is best known for playing Olivia Walton, on the long-running 70's TV show The Waltons, it’s important to point out that she has had a stellar Broadway career as well, which began in 1969 with a production of Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, produced in association with the San Francisco-based American Conservatory Theater.

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But as you’ll hear in this intimate and revealing Interview, she’s also had to face her own struggles and disappointments. She opens up about divorce, alcoholism, and regret. We also discuss the evolution of women’s roles on television and the stage, and Michael confesses her true feelings of playing Olivia all those years on The Waltons. She has such depth of knowledge and experience so we start off talking about her about longevity as an actress and what has kept her going for 60 years. 

Podcast hosted by Patrick Oliver Jones - https://www.pojones.com 

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Why I’ll Never Make It is a Top 25 Theater Podcast on Feedspot, and is also a part of Helium Radio Network and a member of the Broadway Makers Alliance. 

Music in the episode by Blue Dot Sessions is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Music in this episode by John Bartmann is Public Domain.