When I visited Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Easter week to see the home of President James Buchanan, I had no idea that I would be back in town five months later. On September 3, Farm And Home Center of Lancaster hosted a meet and greet event with some of the cast members of the popular TV show Little House on the Prairie.
September 11, 2024, was the 50th anniversary when the series premiered on NBC. For over eight years the viewers were greeted on weekly basis by the familiar opening theme, made by composer David Rose.
Though Little House on the Prairie is an adaptation of the series of children’s books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), the TV show is only very loosely based on the books. The series’ producer and carrying force was Michael Landon (1936-1991), who had become well-known to American TV audience as Little Joe Cartwright in the popular western series Bonanza.
Before writing her books, Laura Ingalls Wilder was a columnist in a farm journal. Her daughter Rose Wilder Lane (1886-1968) encouraged and helped her mother to write the first book, Little House in the Big Woods, which was published in 1932. Rose also had a heavy hand in the editing of the books. Laura’s work is autobiographical fiction and she employed what is called “artistic license,” including creating composite characters based on multiple real individuals. How big of an influence Rose did have to the final text of the books is disputed, but views that align with hers are very visible in them. The success of Little House in the Big Woods resulted in the decision to continue the series, following Laura into young adulthood.
Rose is also connected with my favorite cinema artist Charles Chaplin, though not in a very flattering way. In 1916 she wrote the first biography of Chaplin, who was then working for Mutual Film Corporation, titled Charlie Chaplin’s Own Story. Chaplin gave Rose a series of interviews, and from these she was assigned to put together a biography. But Rose, a popular journalist at the time, probably thought that Chaplin’s story needed little spicing up. So she took similar artistic liberties in describing the life of Chaplin and his family members and colleagues as she would later take when editing her mother’s books. Chaplin had not licensed this “artistic license” and was so angry, that he sued the publisher, and won his case in court. By the court order, the whole edition of Charlie Chaplin’s Own Story was ordered to be destroyed. Only couple of copies survived, and the book later became the rarest of all Chaplin memorabilia. (Until the dawn of the Internet, that is. It is now available for free on Internet Archive).
In 1972 television producer and former NBC executive Ed Friendly (1922-2007) acquired the film and television rights to Laura’s novels from Roger Lea MacBride, the heir and controller of Rose’s literary estate, and later a candidate for President in the 1976 elections. Friendly then asked Michael Landon to direct the pilot for his Ed Friendly Productions company. Landon agreed on the condition that he may also play Charles Ingalls. The pilot, which first aired on March 30, 1974, was based on Laura’s third Little House book, Little House on the Prairie.
The pilot movie introduced the cast which would later be so much loved by the TV audience for decades on. In it Charles Ingalls, played by Landon, and his wife Caroline Ingalls, played by Karen Grassle, move from Pepin, Wisconsin to the open prairies of Kansas. With them travel their three daughters, Mary, Laura, and Carrie, and Laura’s trusty dog Jack. In Kansas, their closest neighbor, Isaiah Edwards, helps the Ingalls family settle into their new home as they encounter storms, a fire, and hostile Indian tribes. But after settling they are notified by the government that they have to move immediately. They give their livestock to Isaiah and leave Kansas.
The movie still remains one of NBC’s highest rated pilots and resulted in NBC-TV picking up the pilot as a series for the 1974-75 television season. The first episode of the new show titled “A Harvest of Friends” premiered on the NBC network on September 11, 1974, and the show would continue until March 21, 1983.
In the first episode of Little House on the Prairie the Ingalls family arrives and gets settled into Plum Creek, Walnut Grove, in Minnesota. The start of the show caused a rift between Ed Friendly and Michael Landon. Friendly wanted to stick with material from Laura’s books, while Landon chose to develop the show freely based on his own creative control. Therefore in the show Landon served as the executive producer, as well as the writer and director.
The roles of the two oldest Ingalls girls were played by Melissa Sue Anderson, who starred as Mary, and Melissa Gilbert, who did the role of Laura. (To make the distinction between the two Melissas, Melissa Sue was referred to as “Missy” on set.) In the series, Mary was the wiser and more responsible one, while Laura was the wild and funny one. In the episode “I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away” Mary loses her eyesight as the result of scarlet fever. Melissa Sue Anderson played the role of a blind person so well, that some viewers who worked with real blind people thought that she had become blind in real life and the producers had worked it in the storyline. (This wasn’t an outrageous assumption; actress Ellen Corby, who played Grandma in The Waltons, had suffered a stroke during the filming of the episode “The Ferris Wheel” which impaired her speech and severely limited her mobility, and later returned in the series.) “I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away” brought an Emmy nomination for Anderson. The show made Melissa Gilbert a star, and generations of TV viewers would remember Laura Ingalls as a pigtails and calico-wearing girl, running on the prairie, having a blast playing with other children, giving sassy responses, and punching Nellie Oleson in the nose.
The role of Caroline Celestia (“Carrie”) Ingalls was played by the set of identical twins, Lindsay Rachel Greenbush and Sidney Robyn Greenbush. The reason for casting twins in one role was practical. All studios love twins because with two children they can get more done in a day. Little children get fussy and don’t always do what the director wants them to do, so if he has twins at hand, he can just swap them out. Furthermore, there are strict regulations of how much child actors can work on a set, and social workers monitor them to keep track of their school time. The father of the Greenbush twins was actor Billy Greenbush, who, among others, had appeared in an episode of Bonanza. His friend knew that director Joseph Sargent was looking for twins for his movie Sunshine (1973), so they were called for the interview and got the part. Sargent later recommended the twins to Michael Landon during the casting for Little House on the Prairie, and when Landon met the girls, he signed them immediately. Compared to Mary and Laura, Carrie was treated as the baby of the family, and the producers wanted her to remain such. It was challenging for the Greenbush twins that Carrie’s role was not growing up on the show, and that she was written to say and do things for a much younger child. (Ironically, after the show ended, Lindsay auditioned for the part of Dorothy in the movie Return to Oz (1985), but the producers passed on her because she was considered too old.)
In a season 4 episode “A Most Precious Gift,” aired on February 27, 1978, Caroline finds out she’s pregnant. She knows how much Charles hopes for a boy, and is very distressed; but when she gives birth to baby Grace, Charles loves her just as he does the older girls. The episode which aired next was the season finale “I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away” where Mary goes blind, and for season 5, Landon needed someone for the role of Grace. The show producer Kent McCray (1928-2018), who had worked already in Bonanza, was a long-time friend with a couple, whose daughter had just had identical twin girls. When Landon met Wendi and Brenda Turnbaugh, he thought them perfect to play the role of Grace, and they remained in the show until the end of season 8.
In a February 1982 episode “Days of Sunshine, Days of Shadow” Laura gives birth baby Rose. The part of Rose went to another set of twins, Jennifer and Sarah Coleman. Their mother was a friend with an employee over at a casting company. She came by a visit to see the brand-new babies, and told the mother that studios love twins. The mother thought that her new twin girls would be cast in a commercial, but since Michael Landon was at that time eagerly looking for a baby to be cast as Laura’s first child, the twins were called and picked. The Coleman twins played baby Rose in seasons 8 and 9. When the show ended, their mother turned down the offer to have the children continue in the filming of the following TV specials, so the role of Rose Wilder was passed on to identical twins Jennifer and Michelle Steffin. (Sarah Coleman died in an accident in 1991 at the age of nine).
The show was followed by three TV movies released between 1983 and 1984, known as the unofficial “tenth” season of the series. The first TV movie, “Little House: Look Back to Yesterday,” was aired on December 16, 1983. The second movie, “Little House: Bless All the Dear Children,” centered around little Rose, who is kidnapped by a grief-stricken mother, prompting Laura, Almanzo, and Mr. Edwards to go on a desperate search. It was originally intended to air in December 1983, but was not aired until December 1984 as a Christmas special. The final special, “Little House: The Last Farewell,” ended dramatically, when a land development tycoon acquires title to all the land of Walnut Grove, and the townspeople dynamite and destroy all the town buildings rather than give them up, and leave to start new lives elsewhere.
The basic characters in the series were the same as in real life. The real Charles and Caroline Ingalls really had three daughters named Mary, Laura, and Carrie. After Carrie, Caroline did, just like in the TV show, really give birth a son, named Charles Frederick “Freddie” Ingalls, but he died as a baby. After Freddie was born the last Ingalls child, a daughter named Grace. The oldest daughter Mary did indeed become blind, Laura did marry Almanzo Wilder (played by Dean Butler in the show), and Laura did give birth a daughter named Rose, and a son who also died as a baby.
But Landon used his skills in creative control to further develop the characters of the Little House world, as well as to create some new ones. While the real Mary Ingalls never married, in the TV show she marries Adam Kendall. With him Mary opens a school for blind children, which did not happen with real Mary either.
The character of Nellie Oleson did exist, and was mainly based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s keen rival at school, Genevieve Masters. Genevieve was the spoiled daughter of Laura’s former teacher, wore beautifully tailored clothes, and had striking blonde curly hair, just as “Nellie” had. Genevieve continually boasted about how much more proper and “civilized” things were in the “East.” The TV show presented Nellie Oleson, played by Alison Arngrim, as a manipulative and sharp-tongued character. Early in the series Nellie resembled closely her counterpart from the books. She had long, elaborately curled hair, acted very prissy and spoiled, and could display a vicious and manipulative personality. Under Landon’s direction Arngrim’s character grew into much greater importance than in the books, as Nellie served as a perfect antagonist to Laura.
The character of Mr. Edwards was introduced in the pilot movie. Victor French, a close friend of Michael Landon and a character actor who had been in several television westerns beforehand, portrayed the role throughout the series’ run. Laura Ingalls Wilder did mention Mr. Edwards in the Little House on the Prairie book, where he swam a creek near their house to bring her and Mary Christmas gifts, a scene memorably presented in the pilot movie. It is unknown whether Mr. Edwards was a completely fictional person or if his story was based on some real events and people from Laura’s life. It is possible that he was a composite of people who did kind deeds for the Ingalls family throughout the years. Michael Landon made Mr. Edwards a poorly educated, gruff-looking dirt farmer, with whom Laura develops a close friendship. Laura’s mother, Caroline, distrusts Mr. Edwards at first, but in time grows to respect and accept him as one of the family, and he eventually becomes Rose’s godfather. Mr. Edwards frequently sang the song, “Old Dan Tucker,” and this musical cue sometimes introduced his character.
In the later seasons the series started what Alison Arngrim called the “cloning process” of the Little House. When the Ingalls girls and Nellie Oleson had overgrown their child roles, Landon had Allison Balson take over the role of the Olesons’ new adoptive daughter Nancy, and Shannen Doherty the role of Almanzo’s niece Jenny Wilder as “the new Laura.” Doherty had voiced Teresa Brisby in the animated film The Secret of NIHM in 1982, and it was her role in the episode “By the Bear That Bit Me” in the TV show Father Murphy, starring Little House alumnus Merlin Olsen, which caught the eye of Michael Landon. In season 9 Doherty played the role of Jenny Wilder, Almanzo’s niece, who lives with him and Laura after her father dies. (Shannen Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, and died on July 13, 2024, at the age of 53).
Eight cast members of the show attended the Lancaster fan meeting. Two of them were original cast members: Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson, and Charlotte Stewart, who played Miss Beadle, the schoolteacher. Two more attendants had joined the original Ingalls family cast little later on: Dean Butler, who played Almanzo Wilder, and Wendi Lou Lee, née Turnbaugh, who played Grace Ingalls.
Then there were the ladies who had played the role of Rose Wilder, Jennifer Donati, née Coleman, who was cast as baby Rose, and Jennifer Steffin, who was cast as toddler Rose. Finally there were two cast members from season 9: Pamela Roylance, who played Sarah Carter, the mother of the family who moved to the Little House after Charles and Caroline left Walnut Grove, and Jonathan Kovacs, who played the role of Matthew, the “Wild Boy,” who was abused and promoted as a sideshow entertainment of a traveling medicine man, and whom Mr. Edwards saves and adopts.
The two originals Arngrim and Stewart were introduced in the series’ second episode “Country Girls.” Arngrim told her memories about Michael Landon, who made the filming of the series a blast with his laughter and pranks. Stewart told how hot it was filming the show at Big Sky Ranch in Southern California’s Simi Valley. Much of the time an actor or actress spends at the set involves waiting that the director calls you to come and do a scene, and in Simi Valley the waiting time was very sweaty and hot. It got so hot that one day Stewart suffered a serious heat stroke on the set. She also has great respect for the Catholic school she attended as a child, and always credits the Sisters there when her good handwriting gets praised. She has so great and fond memories from her time in the series that she still has not been able to watch “Little House: The Last Farewell,” and never will.
Dean Butler told how he discovered her long lost “daughter” Jennifer Donati. She had been a mere baby in the series and lost contact with the rest of the crew, who, as stated above, did not even know she existed. It wasn’t until 2022, when the Little House cast came to do a fan meeting in her home town. She took with her a calendar Butler had signed for her all those years ago, and went to the meeting to see him. According to Butler, Donati came to him and said: “You are my father”; though she herself has told the story little differently. But having rediscovered her TV family, Donati now attends fan meetings together with them.
My favorite meeting was with Wendi Lou Lee (née Turnbaugh) who played Baby Grace Ingalls. Though she did not get that much screen time, Grace was a lovely addition to the Ingalls family and provided fun moments, especially when Charles tried to run home and feed her the food he had made. Also, in the episode “Blind Justice” Charles asks if someone would say grace. But before anyone could utter a word, little Wendi on the set whispered a happy “Baby Grace!” It was not in the script, but Landon and the others loved the line so much that it stayed in.
In her book Red Tail Feathers Mrs. Lee tells a lovely incident when one day a lady visiting the set came to the twins who were dressed up in their bonnets and prairie dresses. She crouched down to their level and said: “Well, aren’t you two just the cutest things. Are you actresses?” The girls hadn’t a clue what an “actress” was, but they knew that their grandmother always called them her little movie stars. So without any hesitation one of them blurted out: “No, we’re movie stars!” The lady laughed and moved on to search for bigger stars while their mother rolled her eyes with embarrassment.
Little House on the Prairie is easily the best TV show available, thanks to the creative skills and storytelling art of Michael Landon. Though there are some episodes which are too sensitive for little children, the overall series is a lovely praise of charity and family values, and I was very happy to meet and greet some of its cast personally.
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