Who played jeffrey on the waltons

In the eighth season of The Waltons, some new family members were introduced.

Olivia Walton’s cousin Rose Burton comes to the Mountain with two kids in tow, Serena and Jeffrey Burton.

Playing little Jeffrey Burton was a child star named Keith Mitchell.

Mitchell was just starting his career, featured in a TV movie that spawned a short-lived TV series called Stickin’ Together.

New to acting, Mitchell was following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the original child star, Jackie Coogan. Coogan famously costarred with Charlie Chaplin in The Kid, then went on to play Uncle Fester on The Addams Family.

Mitchell was the son of Coogan’s daughter Leslie, and he told the Sioux City Journal in 1989 that when his grandfather would visit when he was young, he always "knew grandpa was a strange man" with a remarkable career.

But when Mitchell finally watched The Kid when he was 8 years old, he didn’t see his grandfather acting with Chaplin. He saw what looked like himself.

By that time, the younger child actor had been acting for 3 years in commercials.

"I thought it was me up there," Mitchell said. "We looked alike and since I had done a couple of commercials, I recognized the technique."

After Mitchell’s sitcom failed to launch, he joined the cast of The Waltons in 1979.

As Jeffrey, Mitchell injected some extra energy into the drama. One critic in The Lincoln Star wrote in 1979 that the young boy "transforms the peaceful Walton home into pandemonium."

Describing his early acting, Mitchell joked that he wasn’t much of an actor at all at this young age.

"I was not an actor," Mitchell said. "I was a performer – a vaudeville showpiece. Someone would tell me what to do and I’d go out there and do it. My career was, up until the age of 12, what I’d like to call ‘jump and shout.’"

Mitchell appeared throughout the eighth season of The Waltons, and then continued acting in the 1980s, appearing on hit shows like Laverne & Shirley and even voicing young Tod in Disney’s The Fox & The Hound.

At this point, Mitchell felt he was ready to star in a feature film, and he was hugely disappointed when Steven Spielberg didn’t cast him in 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Spielberg told Mitchell’s agent that the child star had appeared in too many TV shows and that he was looking for an unknown child actor to star in the movie.

Reacting to this casting disappointment, Mitchell decided to distance himself from his more immature acting as a child, and at the age of 12, he adopted his grandfather’s last name and officially changed his name to Keith Coogan.

He said once he took Jackie’s name as his, more people asked him to talk about his grandfather. It "gave me a chance to talk about him more… and that’s nice," Keith said, explaining, "The purpose is to make kids my age aware of the Coogan name and what he did."

Shortly after becoming Keith Coogan, the young star took on one of his biggest movie roles in Adventures in Babysitting.

After that, he could be seen on the big screen throughout the 1990s in movies like Toy Soldiers (with Jackie Coogan’s costar John Astin’s son Sean), Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead and In the Army Now.

Keith felt at this point in his career that unlike other young stars, like his Fox and the Hound costar Corey Feldman, he wasn’t trying to become famous.

"We weren’t in it for the same reasons," Keith said. "They were in it for the money or the power or the flash; I was there because I wanted to do it."

Much like Jackie Coogan, Keith was a natural performer and because he gained so much experience as a child, he felt seasoned before he hit the age of 18.

"I felt I became a different actor at 16," Keith said.

His grandfather Jackie never got to see that side of Keith, because he died in 1984. Keith was 14.

When his heart and kidney started troubling him, Jackie moved in with Keith and his mom, and Keith said they spent a lot of time together playing chess.

During those games, Jackie would always win, and he’d always give Keith acting advice.

"He just told me amazingly simple things like ‘Don’t treat the grips and the prop man and the set dresser like garbage. These people are working harder than you, physically.’" Keith said. "And he told me to be a good listener: ‘Everyone has something to say about the scene, not just the director.’"

Apart from his acting, Coogan became famous when he lobbied for and passed what became named for him: The Coogan Act. It protected child stars from parents who might squander their earnings.

Jackie was looking out for other child stars his whole life, and one of the last things he told his grandson Keith, who still acts in TV and movies today, was: "Always keep an eye on your money and you’ll do OK."

Who played jeffrey on the waltons

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Keith Coogan (born January 13, 1970) is an American actor. He is the grandson of actor Jackie Coogan.[1]

Who played jeffrey on the waltons

Keith Coogan

Keith Coogan at the 61st Academy Awards

Born

Keith Eric Mitchell


(1970-01-13) January 13, 1970 (age 52)

Palm Springs, California, U.S.

Other namesKeith MitchellOccupationActorYears active1978–presentSpouse(s)

Kristen Shean

(m. 2013)​

Relatives

  • Jackie Coogan (maternal grandfather)
  • Robert Coogan (maternal granduncle)

Awards

  • 1982 Young Artist Award
  • Best Young Actor, Guest on a Series
  • Knight Rider episode "A Good Day at White Rock"

Keith Eric Mitchell was born on January 13, 1970[2] in Palm Springs, California, the son of Leslie Diane Coogan Mitchell, a realtor. He changed his name to "Keith Coogan" in 1986, two years after the death of his grandfather, Jackie Coogan. He married Kristen "Pinky" Shean on October 26, 2013, which would have been his grandfather's 99th birthday.

Coogan began acting in commercials at the age of five[2] but appeared on TV as early as two years old.[3] As a child, he appeared on episodes of Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, Eight Is Enough, Knight Rider, Growing Pains, Silver Spoons, Fame, and CHiPs.

In 1982, Coogan also appeared as 'William' in the adaptation of Ray Bradbury's All Summer in a Day that aired on the PBS series WonderWorks.

He has also starred in films including Adventures in Babysitting, Cousins, Hiding Out, Cheetah, Toy Soldiers, Book of Love, and Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, and straight-to-video releases such as Python, Soulkeeper, and Downhill Willie. He guest-starred on Joan of Arcadia and Married to the Kellys.

His theater credits include John Olive's The Voice of the Prairie, James McLure's Pvt. Wars, and an unfinished Louisville work by Marsha Norman, The Holdup. All were performed at Timothy and Buck Busfield's "B" St. Theater in Sacramento, California, during the 1992 and 1993 seasons.

In 2008, he worked in Dallas, Texas, on a short film, The Keith Coogan Experience.[citation needed] On January 1, 2010, Coogan started the "Monologue a Day Project", where he learns a monologue or other short piece every day, "as inspired by Julie & Julia", and posts the resulting video performance on blogspot.com.[4]

Coogan was featured in the minidocumentary, Simply Coogan – An Interview with Keith Coogan, released by Coogan on December 13, 2010, which coincided with his birthday celebrations.[5]

Coogan hosted "The Call Sheet" on the SkidRowStudios.com radio podcast network,[6][better source needed] an entertainment industry-based show that also covered tech news and politics.

Year Title Role
1981 The Fox and the Hound Young Tod (voice)
1982 All Summer in a Day William
1982 Million Dollar Infield Vance Levitas
1987 Adventures in Babysitting Brad Anderson
1987 Hiding Out Patrick Morenski
1989 Cousins Mitch
1989 Cheetah Ted Johnson
1989 Under the Boardwalk Andy
1989 Spooner DB Reynolds
1990 Book of Love Crutch Kane
1991 Toy Soldiers Jonathan "Snuffy" Bradberry
1991 Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead Kenny Crandell
1992 Forever Ted Dickson
1994 In the Army Now Stoner # 1
1995 Downhill Willie Willie Jones
1995 A Reason to Believe Potto
1995 The Power Within Eric Graves
1998 Just a Little Harmless Sex Loudmouth Guy
1998 The Godson Clumsy Student
1998 Ivory Tower Russ Dyerson
1998 Evasive Action Anthony Tait
1999 Dreamers Rob
2001 Soulkeeper Tour Guide
2011 Cats Dancing on Jupiter Fred
2012 Waking Edward
2019 Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Himself[7]

  1. ^ Nolasco, Stephanie (2020-07-07). "Keith Coogan talks growing up with Jackie Coogan, escaping Hollywood's child star curse". Fox News. Retrieved 2021-04-03.
  2. ^ a b "Keith Coogan Biography (1970-)". filmreference.com. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
  3. ^ "Keith Coogan". IMDb.com. Retrieved 1 July 2010.
  4. ^ Keith Coogan. "Monologue A Day Project". Retrieved 30 June 2010.
  5. ^ "Simply Coogan – An Interview with Keith Coogan". Vimeo (Podcast).[permanent dead link]
  6. ^ http://www.skidrowstudios.com/?cat=354 Archived 2021-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019) - IMDb, retrieved 2019-10-17

  • Keith Coogan at IMDb
  • The Keith Coogan Experience at IMDb
  • Monologue a Day Project at blogspot.com

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