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The hour-long weekly drama earned consistent high ratings in its Tuesday night slot and has since gone on to syndication in more than 100 countries. “It’s been fantastic for us,” says Jaclyn Cohen, vice president of programming for TV Land, one network that continues to air the show. “We put it back in its old time slot at 8 p.m., and it’s up to almost 70 percent over our programming from the past year, which is a tribute to the passion and feelings viewers have for the show.”
Due to that popularity, many viewers have wondered whatever became of the cast since the show went off the air in 1983. Landon, the executive producer and heartbeat of Little House, died in 1991 of pancreatic cancer at age 54. Karen Grassle, who played Charles’ loving wife, Caroline, has toured the country performing in various theater productions and now lives in Pacific Palisades, Calif., with her adopted daughter, Lily.
Melissa Gilbert, the youngest actor ever to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, played feisty Laura “Half-Pint” Ingalls, whose character is based on the woman who went on to author the enduring Little House books. Gilbert, now 42, is a mother and working actor, starred in the 2005 TV movie Thicker Than Water and recently served two terms as president of Hollywood’s Screen Actors Guild. Melissa Sue Anderson, who played Laura’s big sister, Mary, is now 44 and a mother of two living in Topanga Canyon, Calif.
Little sister Carrie Ingalls actually was played by twins Sidney and Lindsay Greenbush. Sidney is writing an autobiography, while Lindsay is busy with Little House cast-reunion activities. “We’re all closer now than when we were doing the show,” Lindsay says. “It’s more like a family than ever.” In 2005, several cast members convened in Tombstone, Ariz., at a Western film symposium, and again at the Homestead Days festival in Beatrice, Neb.
Nellie Oleson, Walnut Grove’s favorite bad girl, was played by Allison Arngrim and was one of the show’s most colorful characters. Since leaving Little House in 1981, Arngrim has done stand-up comedy (recent show title: Older! Uglier! Meaner!) and is a social activist on behalf of the National Association to Protect Children and the Ambassador Council of AIDS Project in Los Angeles. “The show’s continuing popularity blows my mind,” Arngrim says
Katherine McGregor, who played Nellie’s hissably wicked on-screen mom, Harriet, was—contrary to her character—one of the set’s best-loved personalities. Today, she is an advocate of meditation and spiritual healing and a follower of Vedanta, an Eastern religion. Richard Bull, who played her husband, Nels, boasts a long line of TV and film credits before and after his work on Little House. The young actor who played Willie Oleson, Jonathan Gilbert (the real-life brother to his co-starring sister, Melissa, and another sister, actress Sara Gilbert, who went on to fame on TV’s Roseanne), lives in New York and works as a stockbroker. Matthew Laborteaux, who played Albert Ingalls, is an actor specializing in video-game voiceovers.
Kevin Hagen, who portrayed Doc Baker, died of cancer last year; Victor French, who played Isaiah Edwards, died in 1989 shortly after completing work on the final season of another series, Highway to Heaven; and Steve Tracy, who played Percival Dalton, Nellie Oleson’s husband, died of an AIDS-related illness in 1986.
“The show is like a gift that keeps on giving,” Arngrim says. “I’m embarrassed to admit it, but we’re still all heinously attached to each other, which tells you the kind of amazing experience we had.”
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