Melissa Gilbert

The Weight of the Braids

Melissa Gilbert was not born on a Minnesota farm. Her story began in Los Angeles on a May day in 1964, when she was adopted by actor Paul Gilbert and dancer Barbara Crane just twenty-four hours after her birth. She grew up in an environment where the spotlight was normal.

Michael Landon saw something different in her during the casting auditions held in 1973. That nine-year-old girl projected a mix of stubbornness and vulnerability that suited the character of Laura Ingalls. And the gamble paid off.

Directed 204 episodes of Little House on the Prairie between 1974 and 1983.

But life on the Paramount set was not exactly a fairy tale. Gilbert spent more time with her fictional family than with her real one, and that created an emotional bond with Landon that bordered on dependence. The actor became her father figure after Paul Gilbert died in 1976.

The series became a global phenomenon that brought in millions of dollars in advertising while she was going through puberty in front of NBC's cameras.

The Union as a Battlefield

When the series ended in 1983, the industry tried to typecast her in victim or ingénue roles. But she decided her path lay in wielding power in Hollywood. In 2001, she ran for president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and won by a narrow margin.

Those were years of extreme political harshness. She clashed with Valerie Harper in an aggressive campaign that split the union into two irreconcilable camps. She won re-election in 2003 and managed the merger with the radio and television performers' federation.

Politics took time away from her acting.

Even so, she starred in dozens of TV movies during the 1990s because that format let her keep a steady work pace without straying too far from her children. In 1992, she filmed Blind Seduction, and in 1994 she appeared in Against Her Will. These were fast productions that fed the afternoon TV schedules.

A Retreat in the Catskill Mountains

Her body began to take its toll after decades of filming and falls from horses. She underwent spinal fusion surgery in 2001 and had to go under the knife again in 2016 to have her silicone implants removed and her neck repaired.

In 2013, she married actor Timothy Busfield. It was her third marriage, following relationships with Bo Brinkman and Bruce Boxleitner. Busfield and she decided to leave the artificial glitter of Los Angeles behind and move to a rustic cabin in New York State.

She lives there without Botox or pretense.

In 2022, she published her memoir Back to the Prairie, detailing her detox from permanent image culture. Gilbert also founded a lifestyle brand called Modern Prairie that focuses on women over fifty.

The actress who was once the most famous girl in the world now spends her days raising chickens and growing her own vegetable garden. In 2024, her estimated net worth stood at around $500,000 after years of medical bills and legal battles with the U.S. tax authorities.