Actress Ronnie Claire Edwards was best known for playing Corabeth Godsey on “The Waltons.”
Ronnie Claire Edwards, the actress best known for playing Corabeth Godsey on “The Waltons,” died Tuesday, according to a statement on her Facebook page. She was 83.
Edwards appeared in more than 100 episodes of the classic family drama, first arriving in Walton’s Mountain during season three in 1975. She was intended to have a short character arc and depart, but audiences enjoyed her character and she was written in as a recurring regular, remaining with the show until its end in 1981. A cousin to the Walton family, Corabeth married storekeeper Ike Godsey, played by the late Joe Conley, and became the small town’s busybody.
In a 2009 interview with D Magazine, Edwards discussed the show and her character: “I’m recognized in hog barns and at state fairs around the country. ‘The Waltons’ was very well written for television. We had good scripts, and I had the best part. Earl Hamner, who created the series, fell in love with the character, so they just wrote and wrote and wrote for her. She was an automatic conflict.”
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Edwards also had roles in television shows including “Boone” and “Sara,” and she guest starred on episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Dynasty.” Her movie appearances included “The Dead Pool” and “8 Seconds.”
But her preference was for theater, and she performed onstage around the country. “Waltons” creator Earl Hamner Jr. said of Edwards, “There are personalities so imbued with the magic of the theatre that they become ‘theatre’ themselves. …It was true of Tallulah Bankhead, Noel Coward, Bette Davis, Lawrence Olivier and a few other stars. It is true today of certain rare individuals such as Ronnie Claire Edwards.”
View photos of Ronnie Claire Edwards and other stars of The Waltons
Born Feb. 9, 1933 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Edwards was also the author of the 2000 memoir “The Knife Thrower’s Assistant: Memoirs of a Human Target.”
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