‘Arrested Development’s’ Jessica Walter passes at 80

Actress Jessica Walter

She played Arrested Development’s self-centered matriarch, Lucille Bluth, to perfection. Jessica Walter, a fan-favorite actress who starred in the Ron Howard series as well as Archer and guest appearances on The Street of San Francisco, She was 80.

Walter died on Wednesday in her home in New York according to TheWrap.

Walter’s daughter Brooke Bowman, an executive at Fox Entertainment, said in a statement to Deadline: “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of my beloved mom Jessica. A working actor for over six decades, her greatest pleasure was bringing joy to others through her storytelling both on screen and off. While her legacy will live on through her body of work, she will also be remembered by many for her wit, class and overall joie de vivre.”

Her roles encompassed everything from the films “Grand Prix” and the Clint Eastwood directorial debut Play Misty for Me to several Broadway productions, including Photo Finish, which won her the Clarence Derwent Awards in 1963 for Outstanding Debut Broadway Performance .

Walter won an Emmy in 1975 for her starring role in the NBC series Amy Prentiss, a drama about a young San Francisco police detective whose career catapults quickly. The show was a spinoff of the then very popular series, Ironside.



Walter was best known for playing Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development first on Fox for a three-season run between 2003-06, then on Netflix for two final seasons in 2013 and 2018-19. “You know, Lucille is in my DNA now,” she once said to the New York Times.

As Lucille, Walter embodied a manipulative, martini-sipping woman whose husband had been jailed and who effortlessly delivered cutting remarks to her children, while herself remaining hilariously out-of-touch.

“Get Me A Vodka Rocks… And A Piece Of Toast,” she said in one of her character’s most infamous lines.

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

Actress Jessica Walter

She played Arrested Development’s self-centered matriarch, Lucille Bluth, to perfection. Jessica Walter, a fan-favorite actress who starred in the Ron Howard series as well as Archer and guest appearances on The Street of San Francisco, She was 80.

Walter died on Wednesday in her home in New York according to TheWrap.

Walter’s daughter Brooke Bowman, an executive at Fox Entertainment, said in a statement to Deadline: “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of my beloved mom Jessica. A working actor for over six decades, her greatest pleasure was bringing joy to others through her storytelling both on screen and off. While her legacy will live on through her body of work, she will also be remembered by many for her wit, class and overall joie de vivre.”

Her roles encompassed everything from the films “Grand Prix” and the Clint Eastwood directorial debut Play Misty for Me to several Broadway productions, including Photo Finish, which won her the Clarence Derwent Awards in 1963 for Outstanding Debut Broadway Performance .

Walter won an Emmy in 1975 for her starring role in the NBC series Amy Prentiss, a drama about a young San Francisco police detective whose career catapults quickly. The show was a spinoff of the then very popular series, Ironside.



Walter was best known for playing Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development first on Fox for a three-season run between 2003-06, then on Netflix for two final seasons in 2013 and 2018-19. “You know, Lucille is in my DNA now,” she once said to the New York Times.

As Lucille, Walter embodied a manipulative, martini-sipping woman whose husband had been jailed and who effortlessly delivered cutting remarks to her children, while herself remaining hilariously out-of-touch.

“Get Me A Vodka Rocks… And A Piece Of Toast,” she said in one of her character’s most infamous lines.

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