In fact, when weighing the pros and cons of taking the job at that location, the show was a strike against it. Coincidentally, she landed her first job teaching at-risk youth in Virginia, the same state in which the show was set. Once there, she didn’t even consider studying drama. Years later, her education at the University of California, Berkeley, was fully funded. “It’s not like you’re going to buy endless chocolate bars,” she joked.Ĭotler’s parents socked the money away. But in the days before gadgets and video games, preteens didn’t have a lot of options for lavish spending. The show’s steady success yielded a healthy paycheck. – who also created the TV series – about a family of redheads.) (The show was based on a novel by Earl Hamner Jr. It turns out the casting director for “The Waltons” was looking for a pint-size redhead. “I had to cough but didn’t know how to do it,” she said, adding, “I was only 6.” Her mom, then a marketer for IBM, relented.Ĭotler tried for a spot on the popular, long-running TV show “Gunsmoke,” but it didn’t pan out. “I harassed her about wanting to be on television,” Cotler remembers. The photographer, struck by the girl’s red hair, freckles and extroversion, suggested she give commercial work a go. Her mother had taken her to a photography studio in Los Angeles from their home in Long Beach to get a Christmas portrait. No, they were your teachers.”Ĭotler is the antithesis of the child who was pushed into show business by overbearing parents. As a kid you didn’t think about your teachers as having actual lives. “I used to say, if Madonna became a teacher, or now Katy Perry, they’d be like, `Ah, Miss Perry gave me homework,”‘ Cotler said. And while the ones who watch the show with their parents may tell Cotler that they find her child character to be cute, they seldom are star struck. Of course, Cotler’s students are too young to know the face. The fan recognized Cotler, but not the others. A few years ago, while lunching with two other Walton sisters, a fan approached the table and asked Cotler about the show. So it is not uncommon for people to still recognize her. With her vermilion red hair and a sprinkling of freckles, Cotler is the rare person who truly resembles the adult version of her childhood self. “We were together for 10 years and saw more of each other than we did of our own families,” Cotler said, speaking by phone from New York City last week. It was a wholesome drama whose episodes delved into all manner of family themes: triumph and heartache at school, the dilemma over whether to spank a child, a daughter who refuses to abide by country traditions, caring for ailing grandparents. It centered on a large family that survived by living off their own land. In addition to making a Friday appearance on the “Today” show, the group got together for a screening and a party.įor those too young to remember, “The Waltons” was set in the mountains of Virginia during the Great Depression. Last week she was on the East Coast, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1970s-era show with the rest of the cast.

Unbeknown to most of her students, Cotler, principal of Environmental Charter Middle School, was a celebrity at their age.Ĭotler had a major role as Elizabeth Walton, the youngest member of the family in both the made-for-TV movie “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story” and the long-running spinoff TV drama “The Waltons.” Kami Cotler became a middle school principal in Inglewood.

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