Melissa Gilbert
7.0
5 votes
Astrological Zodiac sign: Taurus
Age: 49
Melissa Ellen Gilbert is an American actress, writer, and producer, primarily in movies and television. The naturally red-headed Gilbert is best known as a child actress who co-starred as Charles Ingalls's (played by Michael Landon) second daughter, Laura Ingalls, on the dramatic television series Little House on the Prairie (1974–1984). As an adult, she has a very long list of acting, voicework, writing, producing, and directing credits. Melissa also served two terms as President of the Screen Actors Guild.
Gilbert was born in Los Angeles, California. She was adopted the day after she was born by actor and comedian Paul Gilbert (born Paul MacMahon) and his wife, dancer and actress Barbara Crane (later Barbara Gilbert, Barbara Abeles, Barbara Gilbert Cowan). Barbara was the daughter of The Honeymooners creator Harry Crane. Entertainers Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall became her Godparents. The couple later adopted a son, Jonathan Gilbert, who co-starred with Melissa as Willie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie from 1974–1984 and was in the 1979 television movie The Miracle Worker which starred Melissa and Patty Duke. The couple lived in the San Fernando Valley. When Melissa was 8, they divorced. Paul moved to nearby Encino. Barbara then married Harold Abeles, whom Melissa was not close to. Together they had biological daughter Sara Abeles, born January 29, 1975. On February 12, 1976, when Melissa was at her mother's home with the flu, Paul Gilbert suffered a stroke and died at the age of 57.
Barbara's marriage to Abeles also ended in divorce. Meanwhile, Sara, jealous of all the gifts and money Melissa was receiving starring on Little House and in television movies, also wanted to be an actress. She changed her name to Sara Gilbert even though she had no connection to Paul Gilbert and was only one year old when he died. Sara later went on to play Darlene Conner on the popular television series Roseanne.
Melissa, with Hollywood connections in her family background, and a natural ability for entertaining at a very young age, had already done dozens of commercials. One commercial was for Alpo dog food with Lorne Greene (Michael Landon's television father on Bonanza). She then tried out for the role of Laura Ingalls for NBC's 2-hour pilot of the book Little House on the Prairie. Michael Landon instantly loved her. Melissa went to school with his daughter Leslie Landon (who guested on Little House as a teen, and then played school teacher Etta Plumb during the last season). It was Leslie who informed her that she had won the role of Laura, beating out over 500 child actresses for this part. The pilot was shot in 1973 and was a success after it aired. Almost a year later, Melissa began full-time filming for the now picked-up series.
Melissa became extremely close to the Landon family after her adopted father died when she was eleven years old. Landon became her surrogate father both on-and-off the set. Melissa spent weekends and vacations with the Landons. As a teen, she dated Michael Landon Jr. and they went to their proms together. A rift, however, developed between Michael Landon and Melissa after the revelation of Landon's affair with Little House's young makeup artist, Cindy Clerico.
Melissa didn't have any contact with Landon after Little House ended during the 1983/1984 season. Seven years later, on May 9, 1991, when she saw a gaunt-looking Landon on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson discussing his pancreatic cancer, she was compelled to finally telephone him. She had had no contact with Landon since his divorce scandal and he had never met her son, Dakota Brinkman, born May 1, 1989. Together they went to his Malibu home where he was, by then, bed-ridden. They spent the afternoon together. It was her opportunity to say "goodbye," something she did not get to do when Paul Gilbert died when she was 11. Exactly one week later, on July 1, 1991, Landon died. When Melissa gave birth to her second son (with second husband Bruce Boxleitner) on October 6, 1995, she named him Michael in honor of him.
Gilbert has continued to work regularly, mainly in television. She starred as Jean Donovan in the biopic Choices of the Heart (1983), and as Anna Sheridan in two episodes of Babylon 5 with husband Bruce Boxleitner in 1996. She is known as "The Queen of the television movies and mini-series" having starred in over 45 of them since the late 1970s. During the three months of filming for the television mini-series, Zoya, in St. Petersburg, London, Paris, Montreal, and New York, she was pregnant with her second child.
In 1998, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
In 2006, Gilbert appeared as Shari Noble, a patient looking to reconstruct her nipples after committing zoophilia with her dog in a season 4 episode of Nip/Tuck.
Gilbert regularly keeps in contact with her friend Alison Arngrim, who played her nemesis Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. Although their respective characters were enemies for years, in real life, they were close friends. Melissa said they couldn't help but laugh while filming a scene in which a 15-year-old Laura attacks 17-year-old Nellie for playing a trick on her while her character was studying hard for her early graduation diploma. Melissa had to push Alison into a muddy pond and roll around with her while smearing mud on each other. She said they had so much fun that the crew couldn't get them to stop.
In 2009, Melissa is playing Caroline "Ma" Ingalls in a musical adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. This world premiere production at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis was directed by Francesa Zambello and also stars Kara Lindsay as Laura. The show will run through October 19 and is rumored to go on tour and potentially Broadway. A 30-city national tour was announced for 2009–10.
For her contribution to the television industry, Gilbert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6429 Hollywood Blvd in 1985. Her then fiancee, Rob Lowe, was present with her when her star was unveiled during the ceremony. She is one of the youngest actresses to have been honored with a star.
Melissa won the Screen Actors Guild presidency in 2001 after a contentious election in which she ultimately beat her opponent, Valerie Harper, 21,351 votes to 12,613 votes after a second vote was taken. In 2003, she was re-elected, defeating Kent McCord with 50% of the vote to his 42%. In July 2005, she announced that she would not seek a third term and she was succeeded by Alan Rosenberg, who assumed the Guild presidency on September 25.
Melissa dated Michael Landon Jr. when she was in her teens. When she was 16, she met then un-known actor Rob Lowe, also 16, while the two of them were stopped at a red light in their cars.
When she was 17, Melissa made the television version of the movie, Splendor in the Grass. She lost her virginity to her co-star Cyril O'Reilly on the last day of filming.
When she returned to the Little House set, she began to seriously date Rob Lowe. The couple dated on-and-off for 6 years. Melissa has said that they both cheated on each other repeatedly. Rob with Princess Stephanie, Nastassja Kinski (Rob's co-star in the 1984 film The Hotel New Hampshire), and several other actresses and women. Melissa meanwhile, would go out with Tom Cruise and Scott Baio to get back at Rob. They got engaged in the Spring of 1986. In 1987, tired of Rob's constant infidelity, she broke their engagement and immediately left Los Angeles for New York City to star in an off-Broadway production of A Shayna Maidel.
Melissa was set up right away with actor Bo Brinkman, a cousin of actors Randy Quaid and Dennis Quaid. Eight weeks later, on February 22, 1988, she called her mother Barbara to inform her that she had just gotten married the night before on Long Island. Her play co-star Cordelia Richards, served as her maid-of-honor. Assuming it was to Rob Lowe, Barbara was shocked that it was to someone she had never heard of, and the fact that Melissa was coming off a very long relationship and engagement.
Melissa became pregnant months later. US Magazine featured a very pregnant Melissa wrapped in a sheer sheet and named her one of "America's Ten Most Beautiful Women" in 1988. At the age of 24, she gave birth to Dakota Paul Brinkman.
After giving birth, Melissa for the first time, decided to search for her birth parents. She met her biological father in 1990 in Las Vegas where he lived. He had seen her as a child on Little House but had no idea that Melissa was his biological daughter. She also found out that her biological mother had died in 1980. No lasting relationship was established.
After Dakota's birth, the couple started to have marital problems and sought counseling. They separated for a few months, but didn't divorce, as they tried to work on their marriage. After more counseling and separations, Melissa filed for divorce in 1992 after 4 years of marriage. A custody battle later ensued and Dakota ended up living much of the year with his father in Texas.
Only weeks after her divorce filing, Bruce Boxleitner's ex-wife (Kathryn Holcomb), surprisingly set Bruce up with Melissa. Kathryn by then, was married to English actor Ian Ogilvy, but the two shared two sons, Sam and Lee. Melissa as a teen, had a pin-up of Bruce in her locker. She saw Bruce while they were both involved in the filming of the 1981 television special Battle of the Network Stars and approached him. He brushed her off though as she was a teenager and he was in his early 30s.
Bruce was reluctant to go on a date with Melissa. His memories of her were of the girl in pig-tails on Little House. He called her up in September 1992, on the urging of his ex-wife, and Melissa asked him out to lunch the same day. This time when they met, he was stunned that she was now a beautiful woman. After dating exactly a year, the two became engaged. However, Bruce broke up with Melissa in March 1994, and Melissa returned her ring. Only two months later, Bruce changed his mind, and the couple got back together and became engaged again. Then in the Fall of 1994, Bruce again broke up with Melissa for a second time, and this time, she kept the ring.
Melissa wanted to get married and have several more children. Bruce did not want to get married again and his two sons were grown up. Following their second break-up, she told TV Guide, in a cover interview story, that her thoughts were turning back to Rob Lowe, who had recently straightened himself out in rehab. Melissa stated that she wished Rob had gone to rehab while they were dating. She also hinted that she had hoped that things might have worked out for them in the end. Rob, however, had married make-up artist Sheryl Berkoff in 1991.
After the TV Guide interview appeared, Bruce had a change-of-heart for the third time. They re-united and married on January 1, 1995, during an intimate ceremony at her mother's home with only close friends and family.
Despite Bruce's reservations about having more children, Melissa became pregnant only two months later, just as she was about to spend three months out of the country to film the mini-series Zoya. Their baby was due on Christmas 1995. After she returned to their San Fernando Valley ranch, months later she went into sudden labor. She gave birth to a very premature son on October 6, 1995. She named him Michael Garrett Boxleitner. His first name is in honor of Michael Landon. His middle name, Garrett, was in honor of her friend's Sandy and David Peckinpah's 16-year-old son Garrett, who had suddenly died of meningitis two years before. David Peckinpah's uncle was Sam Peckinpah.
Michael stayed in the hospital for weeks so he could gain weight. He was finally strong enough to go home with his parents and the family was on the cover of People on February 26, 1996.
See also: Actress, American, Writer, Film Producer, TV Producer, Jewish, Little House on the Prairie
