Melissa Gilbert

Melissa Ellen Gilbert, born May 8, 1964, in Los Angeles, California, is an American actress whose career spans television, film, stage, and voice work. She was born to Kathy Wood and David Darlington and placed for adoption immediately after birth, then adopted the following day by actor and comedian Paul Gilbert and his wife, dancer and actress Barbara Crane, whose father was Harry Crane, creator of The Honeymooners. Gilbert was raised in her mother's Jewish faith. The Gilberts later adopted a son, Jonathan, who would go on to appear alongside Melissa on Little House on the Prairie. Her parents divorced when she was six, after which her mother married attorney Harold Abeles. That union produced a daughter, Sara Rebecca Abeles, born in 1975, who became known professionally as actress Sara Gilbert. Paul Gilbert died in 1976; though Melissa was told at age eleven that he had suffered a stroke, she later learned he had been a VA patient dealing with chronic pain who had taken his own life.

Gilbert began her career in the late 1960s as a child actress, appearing in dozens of television commercials, including one for Alpo dog food alongside Lorne Greene. She also guest-starred in various television roles before landing her breakthrough part. She beat out more than 500 other child actresses for the role of Laura Ingalls Wilder on the NBC series Little House on the Prairie, a fact she learned from Leslie Landon, Michael Landon's daughter, whom she attended school with. The pilot was filmed in 1973, and the series ran from 1974 to 1983. During that period, Gilbert also appeared in several television films, including The Miracle Worker in 1979 and The Diary of Anne Frank in 1980. She grew close to the Landon family following her adoptive father's death, though a rift developed after the revelation of Landon's affair with the show's makeup artist, Cindy Clerico. After Little House ended, Gilbert had limited contact with Landon until his family reached out following his May 9, 1991, appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, during which he discussed his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. She visited him at his Malibu home, and he died one week later. When Gilbert's son was born on October 6, 1995, with her second husband, actor Bruce Boxleitner, the couple named the child Michael in Landon's honor.

In 1985, Gilbert received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6429 Hollywood Blvd, with her then-fiancé Rob Lowe present at the ceremony. She was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1998. Her post-Little House television work included starring as Jean Donovan in the 1983 biopic Choices of the Heart and appearing as Anna Sheridan in three episodes of Babylon 5 in 1996, alongside then-husband Boxleitner. She also provided the voice of Barbara Gordon, known as Batgirl, on the 1990s animated series Batman: The Animated Series, a role later taken over by Mary Kay Bergman for the film Batman and Mr. Freeze: SubZero and by Tara Strong for The New Batman Adventures. In 2006, she appeared in a season four episode of Nip/Tuck as a character named Shari Noble.

Gilbert's Broadway and stage career includes a Theatre World Award received in 1988. She returned to the world of Little House on the Prairie in a new capacity beginning in 2008, when she originated the role of Caroline "Ma" Ingalls in the musical adaptation of Little House on the Prairie at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, a world premiere production directed by Francesca Zambello that also starred Kara Lindsay as Laura. The production ran through October 19, 2008, and Gilbert continued in the role through a national touring production from 2009 to 2010, which concluded in June 2010 at Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri. While performing on that tour, a medical visit revealed she had been working with a broken back for months; she underwent surgery on July 22, 2010, to replace a disc. In March and April 2018, Gilbert starred in an Off-Off-Broadway limited-run production of Geraldine Aron's 2001 one-woman play My Brilliant Divorce.

Beyond performing, Gilbert served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 2001 to 2005. She was elected in 2001 after defeating Rhoda actress Valerie Harper in a contentious race, and was re-elected in 2003, receiving 50 percent of the vote against Kent McCord's 42 percent. She announced in July 2005 that she would not seek a third term. In March 2012, she competed on season fourteen of Dancing with the Stars on ABC, paired with Maksim Chmerkovskiy. During the fourth week of competition, she fell while performing the Paso Doble, struck her head on her partner's leg, sustained a mild concussion, and was taken to a hospital. She returned to the competition and was eliminated in week eight, finishing in fifth place. On August 10, 2015, Gilbert announced a campaign for Michigan's 8th congressional district in the 2016 U.S. House of Representatives elections, but withdrew from the race in May 2016, citing health issues. In 2022, she launched a lifestyle app for women called Modern Prairie.

Gilbert was married to actor Bo Brinkman from 1988 to 1994 and to actor Bruce Boxleitner from 1995 to 2011. In January 2013, her engagement to actor Timothy Busfield was confirmed, and the two married on April 24, 2013. They lived in Howell, Michigan, from 2013 to 2018 before relocating to New York City. In 2018, the couple also purchased a cottage in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York, which they intended to make their permanent home. Gilbert is the author of several memoirs, a children's book, and a cookbook.