Bio
Jessica Walter is an American actress best known for her role as matriarch Lucille Bluth in the television sitcom Arrested Development, from 2003-2006 and again in 2013.
She also starred as Elaine Robbins in the sitcom Retired at 35, from 2011-2012.
Brooklyn-born Walter is a graduate of New York's High School of the Performing Arts and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, and her extensive theatre credits include productions both on and off Broadway.
She made her Broadway debut in 1961's Advise and Consent, then appeared in Peter Ustinov's Photo Finish, A Severed Head, Night Life and Neil Simon's Rumors. Photo Finish earned Walter the Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Newcomer.
Her flashiest screen role was as the dangerously possessive No. 1 fan Evelyn Draper in Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me (1971), which earned her a Golden Globe nod. She has also appeared in The Flamingo Kid (1984), Tapeheads (1988) and PCU (1994).
Walter also received an Emmy for Best Dramatic Actress in the 1974 series Amy Prentiss. More recently she appeared in Saving Grace and as Tabitha Wilson for the rebooted 90210.
Walter found late-career acclaim on the award-winning sitcom Arrested Development as Lucille, the insensitive, materialistic matriarch of the Bluth family, which garnered Walter a plum comedic role and Emmy attention to boot.
She also appeared in the 2011 legal thriller Bending the Rules.
Walter has been married to actor Ron Leibman since since 26 June, 1983.