Judy Norton on AllMovie

After endearing herself to audiences as the teenaged Mary Ellen on TV's The Waltons, actress Judy Norton-Taylor wanted to change her image, so like any former child star, she took matters into her own hands and posed in Playboy. Norton-Taylor had appeared on the family-oriented series from the time she was 14, but when the show ended its run in 1981, the young starlet had trouble shaking her childlike image in Hollywood, even though by then she was 23. Despite posing nude in Playboy's August 1985 issue, however, Norton-Taylor soon found that her interest in Hollywood had waned. She would reprise the role of Mary Ellen for Waltons TV movies like 1997's A Walton Easter, but largely became selective about her acting roles, appearing on shows like Beggars and Choosers and Ed. By the 2000s, Norton-Taylor had mostly retired from Hollywood to run a chain of theaters with her husband.