Jessica Walter

Walter’s career spanned over six decades and included signature roles on “Arrested Development” and “Archer”. She was a force on both the stage and screen.

Born in Brooklyn on Jan. 31, 1941, to a musician father and a mother who was an immigrant from the former Soviet Union.

She went to New York’s High School of Performing Arts and studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where the late director-actor Sydney Pollack was her teacher.

Walter began her career in her hometown of New York City where she appeared in numerous Broadway productions including “Advise and Consent”, “Neil Simon’s Rumors”, “Photo Finish” and many others. She also starred in the Broadway revival of “Anything Goes”, which picked up several Tony Awards. At age 30, she starred in 1971’s “Play Misty for Me” as a radio fan who falls — hard, fast and psychotically — for a handsome young Northern California disc jockey (Clint Eastwood, making his directorial debut).

Walter also appeared in numerous TV series, including “The Streets of San Francisco” and “Trapper John, M.D”, and won an Emmy for her lead role in the 1974 show “Amy Prentiss”. In 2003, Walter was cast as Lucille Bluth on Fox-series, “Arrested Development”.

Additionally, she served as second national vice president of the Screen Actors Guild and was an elected member of the SAG board of directors for more than a decade.

Walter was married twice, first to Ross Bowman, from 1966 to 1978, and then to actor Ron Leibman, from 1983 until his death in 2019.

She is survived by daughter Brooke Bowman, who is SVP Drama Programming at Fox Entertainment, and grandson Micah Heymann.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Guiding Eyes for the Blind.