Photo courtesy Harlan Boll Public Relations
Four time Emmy winner, People’s Choice recipient and multiple Golden Globe nominee Michael Learned will be honored with the Legend Award at The Family Film Awards on Thursday, Sept 27. In addition, the iconic actress recently served as a celebrity judge at the Grand Finale of the 12th annual LA’s Next Great Stage Star Competition (held Monday, Aug. 27), plus she just completed filming the short subject Second Acts and will reprise the role of Miss Daisy in a stage production of Driving Miss Daisy coming up in January 2019 at the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach, California.
Learned’s first series regular audition was for Olivia Walton, the matriarch of the Walton family, on The Waltons, the long-running CBS family drama set in the Depression era and based on the writings of Earl Hamner. Though told at the audition that her character would probably not continue beyond the pilot, Learned went on to play Olivia for eight seasons (1972-1980), creating the role of a lifetime. After winning three Emmys for The Waltons (and a fourth for her starring role in Nurse), Learned became a fixture in daytime television for her regular roles on General Hospital, The Young & the Restless, as well as a crossover character (the Honorable Judge Turner) in both One Life to Live and All My Children, while her stage credits include productions of Steel Magnolias, the national tour of On Golden Pond, Lewis Black’s One Slight Hitch, the Broadway productions of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosenweig and The Outgoing Tide.
Michael Learned also recently appeared in the critically acclaimed digital dramedy Life Interrupted. Her upcoming works include Second Acts, a short film about two people who strike up an love affair over the course of an evening and discover that love conquers all.
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