Joe Conley

Joe Conley (March 3, 1928 – July 7, 2013) was an American actor who played many small roles on television and is most remembered for his role as the storekeeper Ike Godsey in The Waltons.

Joe Conley was born in Buffalo, New York. He started acting after returning from military service in Korea, and was running three real-estate agencies in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles by the early 1970s after beginning this second career in 1961. While acting, he continued to work in real estate and, as a result, became wealthy.

By the early 1970s, his career as an actor was in limbo. After twenty years of small parts, mainly in television shows, he performed with Pat Harrington in an AT&T educational film called How to Lose Your Best Customer Without Really Trying. Before long, he was cast as storekeeper Ike Godsey in The Waltons. Conley was paired with Ronnie Claire Edwards, who portrayed his wife Corabeth Walton Godsey; their characters married on the show in 1975. In 2009, Conley published his autobiography, Ike Godsey of Walton's Mountain.

In real life, Conley was married to and later divorced from Jacqueline Stakes, with whom he had two children. He married Louise Teechen in 1969, and had two children with her.

Conley died on July 7, 2013, at a care facility in Newbury Park, California of complications from dementia. He was 85 and is survived by his wife, three daughters, and a son.