Melissa Gilbert, now 60, still feels lucky that she didn’t fall into the traps of child stardom. She gives all the credit to Little House on the Prairiethe family drama she starred on for nine seasons, beginning when she was 10.
“Again, that’s part and parcel of Little House on the Prairie,” she said Wednesday on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “I grew up with Michal Landon. My sister is a kid actor, too, and we say, ‘What’s the difference?’ I grew up with Michael Landon. She grew up with Roseanne. Do the math.”
See the moment at 3:18 in the video below:
Gilbert played the precocious young Laura Ingalls, who would grow up to be real-life author Laura Ingalls Wilder, on the NBC hit. Her parents were Charles Ingalls, played by the show’s executive producer and frequent writer and director Michael Landon.
Gilbert has long been vocal about her love for her “larger-than-life surrogate father, Michael Landon,” as she wrote of him in her 2010 book, Prairie Tale: A Memoir.
Costar Karen Grassle, who played her Ma, Caroline Ingalls, had a different perspective, as she said in November 2021.
“Mike would say ‘c—‘ and make disgusting jokes about how a woman smelled after sex,” she told the New York Post. ” It was almost like I was frozen. But, as a woman in the 1970s film industry, I was so accustomed to these putdowns, it never occurred to me to sharply rebuke him. I kept up the professionalism. I’d be the good girl, play the part and hope.”
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty; Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty
Gilbert’s younger sister, Sara, starred on the ’90s sitcom Roseanne from the time it debuted in 1988, when she was 13, playing Barr’s wisecracking middle child Darlene for nine seasons.
Barr memorably faced controversy during the run of the show when she performed a bawdy version of the national anthem that included spitting and grabbing her crotch before a professional baseball game. After the controversial comedian’s namesake series was revived 2018, it was quickly cancelled after she sent a racist tweet about then-President Barack Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. The Conners was then born.
Barr blamed her costar Sara Gilbert for the demise of the modern Roseanneas she told Megyn Kelly on her SiriusXM show in May 2023. The Darlene actor had called her TV mom’s words “abhorrent” and said they were not representative of the show.
“It was her tweet that canceled the show,” Barr said. “And then she tweeted ‘It’s sad when one cast member,’ something about racist, blah, blah. And I was floored. I was just floored. And you know, but she ends up owning my work and Tom Werner becomes her partner in owning my work.”
Both Gilberts have continued to act.
Melissa, at least, still enjoys reminiscing on her early days in the biz. She said she now watches Little House with her granddaughters.
When Clarkson asked why she thought the show still airs in reruns — it just celebrated its 50th anniversary — Gilbert had a theory.
“You know, a lot of people will say it’s because the stories are about, you know, community and family and love and acceptance and all the good things in life that we all crave,” she said. “But we were also telling the stories of America in 1974 through the lens of 1874. We were telling stories of veterans coming home from Vietnam, but it was the Civil War. We were telling stories of them coming home drug addicted. We were telling the stories of racism, anti-semitism, chauvinism, and all of the things that we were fighting.”
“Well,” Clarkson said sarcastically, “it’s nice to know that nothing changes.”
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