Despite being born and dying in New York (which is just so…New York, by the way), Jessica Walter’s most iconic and memorable role—occurring in the later years of her career—was a woman who embodied not just California (rather oblivious and more than slightly detached from reality), but specifically Orange County. That woman, of course, is Lucille Bluth. While not the official “star” of Arrested Development, she certainly stole most of the show as the Bluth family’s alcoholic, sociopathic matriarch. Yet her lack of concern for anyone but herself is somehow made comical and iconic through Walter’s deft acting abilities.
A true “OC” mom who came to the limelight the same year The OC also premiered, Lucille’s love was not for her family, but only the material items that could be extracted illegally from the Bluth Company account. Securing her the trappings of an image wrapped in minks, martinis and malevolence. One she’s not quick to dispense with merely because her husband has been arrested for embezzlement and “light treason.”
Having been shrouded in Orange County elitism for so long, her interactions with those “beneath her station” are even worse than the ones with her children. For instance, her maid dragging her fur coat on the floor to take it to the closet results in Lucille snapping, “That coat costs more than your house!” When her son, Michael (Jason Bateman), gives her a horrified look, she shrugs, “Oh we joke, she doesn’t even have a house.”
The competitive, contentious nature between Lucille and her only daughter (adopted, mind you), Lindsay (Portia De Rossi), also highlights Dame Bluth’s ability to function solely as a manipulative instigator rather than anything resembling maternal. Which is why Lindsay and Lucille are rarely alone together, making a brief exception to go to lunch one day, at which time, Lindsay notes of Mama’s alcoholic ways, “Did you enjoy your meal, Mom? You drank it fast enough.” Always ready with the rapier to cut Lindsay where it hurts, Lucille is filled with biting (no pun intended) remarks about her daughter’s weight, saying such things as, “You want your belt to buckle, not your chair.”
Through it all, because of Walter’s own “New York elitism” brought to one of the few places on the West Coast where such “airs” can exist, Mrs. Bluth proves herself to be one of the quintessential types of “California Girls”: the conservative OC horror show dripping in pearls and judgment. And while that trope might prove to be a darker side of California despite the state being constantly in the light of the sun, it speaks to how wealth is essential in such a sought-after milieu as this. And with wealth, tends to come a certain out-of-touchness with reality—inevitably paired with the soullessness that enabled one to secure such wealth in the first place (this even includes simply being born into it).
Apart from even Arrested Development, there is also Walter’s breakout role as Evelyn Draper in Play Misty For Me, which takes place in another “splashy” enclave of coastal California: Carmel. Ah yes, and then there was Walter’s stint on the first season of 90210 (the reboot, to be clear). Indeed, one might say Walter had a penchant for roles in highbrow parts of California as a direct result of Play Misty For Me.
And so, we will always think of New York-born Walter not on the stage of some theater in the bowels of Times Square-adjacent areas, but rather, on a picturesque boat docked in the more expensive waters of Southern California as she sips on a martini and faintly worries about the arrival of the SEC.
