Peggy Rea

Before she became an actress, Rea left UCLA to attend business school. She landed a job as a production secretary at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1940s. Later, she was an assistant to writer-musician Kay Thompson until Thompson dropped her in April 1948. Some of the points of discord apparently included Rea's insistence on staying at the Algonquin Hotel (rather than Essex House, where Thompson was staying), and disappearing, on at least one occasion, on the eve of their New York opening to see Born Yesterday on Broadway without telling Thompson.

She appeared in feature films, including Cold Turkey and In Country. She joined the cast of The Waltons in 1979 as Rose Burton, a cousin of Olivia Walton, as sort of a surrogate parental figure replacing Ellen Corby (Grandma), Michael Learned (Olivia), and the following year, Ralph Waite (John). She also previously appeared in a 1978 episode of The Waltons, playing a landlady.

Rea remained with the series until the spring of 1981 when her character of Rose married her beau Stanley Perkins (played by William Schallert) shortly before the show's cancellation. Rea's character of Rose appeared in the Walton's Thanksgiving Reunion in 1993. Rea later appeared as a regular on the sitcom Grace Under Fire during the 1990s.

Rea died in Toluca Lake, California, aged 89, from complications of heart failure on February 5, 2011.