Jessica Walter began her career in her home town of New York City where she conquered numerous Broadway productions including Advise and Consent, Neil Simon’s Rumors, A Severed Head, Nightlife and Photo Finish, a role that earned her the Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Also on stage, Walter has worked at New York’s famed Playwright’s Horizons and the Los Angeles Theater Center, where she starred in Tartuffe opposite Ron Leibman, her Emmy® and Tony® Award-winning husband. She recently starred in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes, which picked up several Tony Awards this year.
Walter’s feature film work includes Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me (Golden Globe® Award nomination, Best Actress in a Motion Picture). A short list of Walter’s additional film work includes The Group, Slums of Beverly Hills, Lilith, The Flamingo Kid, Dummy, Number One and Grand Prix (Golden Globe nomination, Most Promising Newcomer).
Her numerous television roles include “Malory Archer” on Archer, the title character in the series Amy Prentiss (Emmy Award win, Best Actress); Trapper John, M.D. (Emmy Award nomination); The Streets of San Francisco (Emmy Award nomination); and Arrested Development (Emmy Award nomination, SAG nomination).
Walter has also appeared in miniseries’ including Wheels, Scruples, Bare Essence and Victory at Entebbe. She has guest-starred in over 60 episodic television roles and appeared as a regular in several recent television series.
Walter provided her voice for ABC's primetime Jim Henson series Dinosaurs. Additional voice-over work has included serving as a spokeswoman for Southern California Edison, Albertsons supermarkets and Chase Bank. In addition to her work in theatre, film and television, Walter has served as 2nd National Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and was an elected member of the SAG Board of Directors for over a decade.
Jessica Walter as “Malory Archer”
A career spy comes with a lot of emotional baggage. When that career spans 50 years and was sidetracked by an unplanned pregnancy and the decades of resentment which followed it, the baggage actually needs its own separate train car. And when that train is overloaded with secrets and fueled by every liquor from absinthe to vodka, it’s time to get off the tracks because Malory Archer is coming down the line. As the stern-yet-more-stern spy agency director, Malory is a highly successful woman in a field dominated by men. Any number of whom – including Nikolai Jakov of the KGB and Burt Reynolds of Burt Reynolds – may be Archer’s father.