He was in the house.
During a recent interview with Woman’s World, “Little House on the Prairie” star Alison Arngrim, 63, reflected on her late co-star Michael Landon, who died in 1991 of 54 of pancreatic cancer.
Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on the show, called Landon “one of the funniest people I ever met.”
Landon played Charles “Pa” Ingalls, father of Laura Ingalls (Melissa Gilbert), and also produced the show and directed numerous episodes.
Arngrim added, “Remember, he’s writing the show, he’s producing the show and he’s directing the show and he’s this ball of energy and just a workaholic cuckoo, but so funny. Michael was a creative tornado. It was absolutely amazing to watch him work, and then he was an absolute laugh riot and couldn’t resist a practical joke.”
She explained that his jokes came despite the fact that, “his home life was not happy. He had a miserable childhood, and he talked openly about how difficult his parents were. He was looking for the kind of real family and real love and connection that the show exemplified.”
Dean Butler, 69, who played Almanzo Wilder in the show, told the outlet that Landon, was “not a perfect human being by any stretch.”
He added, “He was a very full, richly diverse human being, but he understood what his job was and that was to create something that multiple generations of people could experience together. Something that would be foundational in terms of its goodness with people, values and morals—that would be crystal clear. There was very little nuance and ambiguity in what he was doing.”
“Little House on the Prairie” aired for nine seasons on NBC, from 1974 to 1983, following the Ingalls family in Minnesota in the late 1800s.
Actress Karen Grassle, who played Caroline “Ma” Ingalls, has previously said that Landon talked about his sex life on the set, which countered his wholesome onscreen image.
“I didn’t want to think about his penis,” Grassle recalled in her 2021 memoir, “Bright Lights, Prairie Dust: Life, Loss and Love from Little House’s Ma.”
He also an affair with Cindy Clerico, then an 18 year old teenager who was working as a stand-in for his co-star Melissa Francis (Cassandra Cooper Ingalls). Clerico, who would eventually become his third wife, was more than 20 years his junior.
“I knew his wife,” Grassle wrote in her book. “I had been in their home. She had been kind to me. And I thought about her children — there were three of them still at home … and younger than Cindy.”
She went on to describe how Lynn had “done everything his [Landon’s] way,” looking after the family while the actor worked long hours, playing hostess at his business dinners and “staying home on Christmas Eve when he was gambling at the office.”
Landon tied the knot with Clerico in 1983 and was married to her until his 1991 death.
Grassle said that their affair, “was awkward as hell for us in the company. Everyone saw. Everyone looked away.”
