Walton was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but raised in Toronto, Canada,[1] where she attended Loretto Abbey Catholic Secondary School.
[3] She co-starred in film The Strawberry Statement (1970), and portrayed the female lead roles of The Peace Killers (1971) and Monkeys in the Attic (1974).
[1] Later in that year, Walton joined the cast of another CBS soap opera, The Young and the Restless, in the role as Jill Foster Abbott.
Walton won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1997 for Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her portrayal of Jill,[5] and was nominated in 1996, 2000, and 2017.
[12] Walton was good friends with her Y&R co-star Jeanne Cooper, who portrayed her character Jill's arch-rival Katherine Chancellor, from 1973 until her death in May 2013.