Speaker 1: Hello Wilder listeners, This is producer Emily taking over for
Speaker 1: Glenneth today because we are still prepping for our final episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone who's come this far with us,
Speaker 1: and especially thank you to those who have reached out
Speaker 1: to share about their relationship with Laura in their life.
Speaker 1: We're incorporating a bunch of your feedback into our grand
Speaker 1: finale episode. But while you wait for that, we have
Speaker 1: a surprise for you. There are so many things we
Speaker 1: haven't been able to include in this series. Moments from
Speaker 1: the road, more background on Laura and Roses lives, and
Speaker 1: of course all the fascinating things are guests said in interviews.
Speaker 1: We wanted to release one of those full interviews, so
Speaker 1: we present to you our extended Melissa Gilbert interview. If
Speaker 1: you grew up loving The Little House television show, you
Speaker 1: know Melissa Gilbert. I know that when Glennis first started
Speaker 1: talking to me about a podcast about Laura Ingles Wilder,
Speaker 1: the first image that popped up in my head was
Speaker 1: ten year old Melissa running down that grassy hill with
Speaker 1: braids of floral calico dress. Of course, now we know
Speaker 1: that Laura is so many things, and no one understands
Speaker 1: that legacy better than Melissa, who's been shouldering a part.
Speaker 2: Of it for the past fifty years.
Speaker 3: We're so thankful that she was willing to talk to
Speaker 3: us about what that experience has been like. Our conversation
Speaker 3: ranged from her time on the TV show with Michael
Speaker 3: Landon and the rest of the cast, to finding agency
Speaker 3: as a young actor, to her business Modern Prairie, to
Speaker 3: her activism, and even.
Speaker 2: Her thoughts on Rose Wilder Lane.
Speaker 3: We spoke to Melissa over Zoom, where she came to
Speaker 3: us from her home in the Catskills. By the way,
Speaker 3: she now lives there in a very picturesque, cozy, homespun
Speaker 3: Laura esque life. It was so great to talk to her.
Speaker 3: We're so grateful she shared her time with us. We
Speaker 3: hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2: Thank you for agreeing to do this. We're so excited
Speaker 2: that you here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 2: I'm thrilled. Nine year old me is beyond thrilled.
Speaker 4: I must tell you, well, first of all, we should
Speaker 4: have you introduced yourself, Melissa. I'm sure everyone's going to
Speaker 4: recognize your voice when they listen to this, but you know,
Speaker 4: for the purposes of three people who might not know
Speaker 4: who you are, if you could just properly introduce yourself,
Speaker 4: that would be really wonderful.
Speaker 1: Uh Hi, I am Melissa Gilbert and I had the
Speaker 1: incredible honor of playing Laura Ingalls Wilder Laura Ingles first,
Speaker 1: and then Laura Ingles Wilder ultimately on Little House in
Speaker 1: the Prairie, the television series.
Speaker 2: How did that come to happen?
Speaker 1: My first TV series? I was Everyron was gun Smoke.
Speaker 1: That's how old I am. I think I was about
Speaker 1: five or six at that point, and I really just
Speaker 1: only did little jobs here and there because my parents
Speaker 1: felt that meeting school was more important. But Little House
Speaker 1: in the Prairie came along, and it was my mom's
Speaker 1: favorite books, and I had read Little House in the
Speaker 1: Big Woods and was starting to read Little House in
Speaker 1: the Prairie that and I was pretty excited. And so
Speaker 1: the decision was made that I would audition. And I
Speaker 1: don't know what everyone else was thinking, but I knew
Speaker 1: there were hundreds of girls auditioning too, so I figured
Speaker 1: it's never going to happen. And then it just, you know,
Speaker 1: was the ordinary process called back back, callback, callback screen test,
Speaker 1: and I got the part, and the adventure began, and
Speaker 1: what an adventure it was. It's been, you know, nearly
Speaker 1: fifty years since we first aired, so it has been
Speaker 1: dipty years since we shot the pilot. Not a day
Speaker 1: goes by that I don't think about Little House in
Speaker 1: the Prairie or mention something to do with Little House
Speaker 1: in the Prey, or Laura or Rose or the Angles relatives,
Speaker 1: or something that has something to do with them, and
Speaker 1: they're so infused in my in my being at this point,
Speaker 1: I want to.
Speaker 4: Talk about that in a bit because I'm curious what
Speaker 4: it's like to shoulder that legacy. But just going back
Speaker 4: to the audition process, did you, during that process audition
Speaker 4: with Michael Landon or any the other members of the
Speaker 4: who eventually became the cast.
Speaker 1: I did. I got to go in and read with
Speaker 1: Michael early On. Kent McCrae, our producer, was there, and
Speaker 1: Susan Sukman, who later became Susan McCrae was there, and
Speaker 1: I remember Michael and the reason I remember Michael Lannon.
Speaker 1: I went to a private school in Los Angeles, the
Speaker 1: Buckley School, and I had auditioned and screen tested for
Speaker 1: a Little House and didn't know if I'd gotten the part,
Speaker 1: and I was at school one day in the lunch area,
Speaker 1: and this other girl ran up to me and she said,
Speaker 1: are you Melissa, And I said yeah. She said I'm
Speaker 1: Leslie Landon. And my dad says, you're going to be Laura,
Speaker 1: And nobody knew. My agents hadn't gotten a call yet.
Speaker 1: My mother didn't know. I ran to the office because
Speaker 1: sand there's no cell phones. Then I ran to the
Speaker 1: office and said it was an emergency. I had to
Speaker 1: call my mom, and my mom called my agents, and
Speaker 1: my agents called the network, and Leslie got so grounded,
Speaker 1: so grounded. We're still friends to this day. But when
Speaker 1: I auditioned, I didn't know who Michael Lennon was. I'd
Speaker 1: never watched Bonanza. My family was beside themselves. My grandfather,
Speaker 1: who was, you know, a very famous comedy writer and
Speaker 1: is all right, sent a note over to Michael and
Speaker 1: he knew him from writing the Dean Martin roasts. And
Speaker 1: my grandfather actually typed out my audition scenes for me
Speaker 1: on his typewriter, and my mom and my godmother, my grandmother,
Speaker 1: everybody were They were all hysterical. And I was going
Speaker 1: to meet this Michael Landon who was supposed to be
Speaker 1: just the best and the most handsome and so talented,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know, and I went into the room
Speaker 1: when I first saw him, and soon as I met him,
Speaker 1: I knew exactly why they were all hysterical. He just
Speaker 1: he glowed, you know, he just he had it undeniable.
Speaker 1: And the first time I heard him laugh, he had
Speaker 1: the best laugh of any human I've ever been around,
Speaker 1: aside from my kids and grandkids, who their laughs killed me.
Speaker 1: But his laugh was just so, this could be it.
Speaker 1: And then I found out later too, after the screen
Speaker 1: test that when they took this great tests to show
Speaker 1: it to NBC to the network, Michael only took mine
Speaker 1: and basically said, if it's not her, then we can't
Speaker 1: do it, which is wow. I'm glad I didn't know
Speaker 1: that at the time. That would have been a lot
Speaker 1: for a nine year old to carry, but now looking back,
Speaker 1: it's immensely appreciated.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of a.
Speaker 4: Lot for a nine year old to carry, you know,
Speaker 4: we spoke to Alison Arngrim and Karen Grassley, who both
Speaker 4: brought up on their own what an extraordinary presence you
Speaker 4: were as a nine year old. Like Alison Arngrim talks
Speaker 4: about meeting you for the first time, and I think
Speaker 4: described you as being sort of like a firecracker, but
Speaker 4: just how in command of yourself and.
Speaker 2: How I guess in control.
Speaker 4: You were almost like that you were very powerful force
Speaker 4: and really knew exactly what you wanted and what was expected.
Speaker 2: Is that do you remember it like that?
Speaker 1: I knew what my job was and I rejoiced that.
Speaker 1: I rejoiced then doing it. I love that job. I
Speaker 1: still love that job. I love to act. I have
Speaker 1: you know now at this point it had and have
Speaker 1: at least eight other careers. Acting is the one thing
Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily come the easiest, but fits the best
Speaker 1: and brings me the most satisfaction. And so as a
Speaker 1: kid it was just as as maybe commanding and in
Speaker 1: control as they described me being. I felt like I
Speaker 1: was as full of wonder at the same time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just everything was a marvel to me. The fact
Speaker 1: that they brought me boots that had buttons and they
Speaker 1: had to teach me how to use a button hook
Speaker 1: to button those high button boots. They were legitimately button boots,
Speaker 1: no hidden zippers, and that to me was like the
Speaker 1: best game of dress up in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: I there were for real cows and real horror says,
Speaker 1: and real chickens and other kids to play with. And
Speaker 1: we were outside, I think more than they were inside.
Speaker 1: And there were all these great grown ups around who
Speaker 1: were like a bunch of crazy aunts and uncles. And
Speaker 1: there were all these wonderful men on the crew who
Speaker 1: taught me how to ride horses and would throw me
Speaker 1: in the air and catch me. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: heaven for a kid. I even loved going to school
Speaker 1: on the set, you know, I dilly dally. There was
Speaker 1: there was, I mean, it was common knowledge with the
Speaker 1: assistant directors. They'd have to always say, hey, half Pipe
Speaker 1: go to school, because that was like the thing, Halfpipe
Speaker 1: go to school. And it would just trickle down to
Speaker 1: the whole crew where I'd be standing again, and you go,
Speaker 1: h Halfpipe go to school, and it would, you know,
Speaker 1: one by one, I'd walk by everyone. But even that part,
Speaker 1: even the school part, was great. I loved my teacher,
Speaker 1: missus Venir. I loved being in the classroom with Alison
Speaker 1: when she was there. She got to go to regular
Speaker 1: school more than I did, but it was a really
Speaker 1: fun environment. And then being able to work with all
Speaker 1: of those extraordinary actors and crew, the adults, and to
Speaker 1: be considered their peer while we were working was an
Speaker 1: honor actually and very I didn't feel burdened by it ever.
Speaker 1: I felt like it was gifted to me, like this
Speaker 1: was a tremendous responsibility, but they were giving me the
Speaker 1: responsibility because they knew I could do it, and that
Speaker 1: made me feel really good about myself as an actor.
Speaker 1: So he felt very supported on the set always. I
Speaker 1: never felt pushed or forced to do anything I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do. It was a very as kid friendly
Speaker 1: as a set could be. This was the kid friendliest.
Speaker 1: We were contained, but we weren't caged certainly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Allison said that one of the things she remembered about
Speaker 4: Michael was people ask her that he respected her as
Speaker 4: a as a worker, you know, like he respected There
Speaker 4: was a lot of respect that you towards the child actors,
Speaker 4: that that they were getting paid and they were here
Speaker 4: to do a job as opposed to handholding.
Speaker 2: I guess was the sense I got.
Speaker 1: It was the same with anyone as long as we
Speaker 1: did our job, because we were not at We've our
Speaker 1: crew loved blessedly because they've been together so long since
Speaker 1: some since high Chaparral and then Bonanza and then Little House.
Speaker 1: They worked really really fast. There wasn't any time for delays.
Speaker 1: So as long as we were professional adults and children
Speaker 1: alike and knew our lines, our jobs, what we had
Speaker 1: to do, and everything went smoothly, that was great. But
Speaker 1: if someone came in and didn't know or was unprofessional
Speaker 1: in any way, it wouldn't last very long and they'd
Speaker 1: be gone, And it didn't matter if they were a
Speaker 1: kid or an adult. There was just no time for unprofessionalism.
Speaker 1: When you say the crew called you half pint, that
Speaker 1: just sort of stood out to me. Was there because
Speaker 1: you're so young?
Speaker 4: Was there sort of like a bleeding over of your
Speaker 4: character into your sort of idea of yourself and your
Speaker 4: relationship with Michael and the relationship Laura has with Pa.
Speaker 2: Was that it ever sort of confusing or it was.
Speaker 1: Never confusing, It was always really clear. I mean, I
Speaker 1: had my own father who I adored, but my father
Speaker 1: passed away when I was eleven, so two years into
Speaker 1: the series, I was nurturing this relationship on camera with Michael.
Speaker 1: When my father died, and our families were all really close,
Speaker 1: my parents were divorced and my mother was remarried, but
Speaker 1: my mom and my stepdad and Michael and his wife
Speaker 1: Lynn and their kids and and our family, we all
Speaker 1: vacation together. We went to Hawaii on Spring break together.
Speaker 1: We had New Year's Eves together. We slept over each
Speaker 1: other's houses. So our relationship transcended just work. We were tight.
Speaker 1: And Michael, I always looked at him as a father,
Speaker 1: being you and mentor. But never was I confused between
Speaker 1: which one was my daddy and which one was And
Speaker 1: I call him my paw and he is. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's my paw. And my dad is my dad, and
Speaker 1: my birth father is my birth father. So you know
Speaker 1: I'm able to keep straight. I'm adopted, so I have
Speaker 1: all these relationships that I'm very well able to keep straight.
Speaker 1: I know exactly the who. And oddly enough, for all
Speaker 1: of these wonderful men that have come in and out
Speaker 1: of my life, most of them have passed away, they're
Speaker 1: all still sort of there in me and an inspiration
Speaker 1: in so many ways. Michael, especially you.
Speaker 4: Wrote in your book about him directing you and sort
Speaker 4: of getting you into the emotion. There was so much crime,
Speaker 4: There was so much crying on that show, I mean
Speaker 4: from him as much as any as much as anyone else.
Speaker 4: I'm just curious, like looking, I have no sense, but
Speaker 4: like the sort of the sense of maybe emotional. I
Speaker 4: don't know if manipulation is too strong a word, but
Speaker 4: how how he would get you or any other of
Speaker 4: the kid actors sort of into place to access that
Speaker 4: emotion or as a kid, do you have access to
Speaker 4: it more easily?
Speaker 3: For me?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I've always been a bit of
Speaker 1: an EmPATH, even as a kid, so accessing that kind
Speaker 1: of emotion was never difficult for me.
Speaker 5: But it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, on a week by week basis shooting a
Speaker 1: show like Little House in the Prairie, there's always someone crying,
Speaker 1: crying or running or running and crying at the same time,
Speaker 1: which I seemed to do in every episode, crying and
Speaker 1: running and running and crying. And there were times where
Speaker 1: it was those emotions were hard to tap into, and
Speaker 1: when those times would happen, Michael could kind of sense
Speaker 1: it if he was there. And there were many many
Speaker 1: times where one that comes into mind, especially where I
Speaker 1: was having a hard time and just not quite in it,
Speaker 1: and he kind of cut everything and stopped everything and said, cure,
Speaker 1: take a walk. With me and walk me away from
Speaker 1: the set, and by the time he got about, I
Speaker 1: don't know, twenty feet away, he knelt down in front
Speaker 1: of me and he had tears streaming down his face
Speaker 1: and he looked at me and he said, do you
Speaker 1: have any idea how much I love you? And I
Speaker 1: started crying. He said, okay, you're ready, can we go
Speaker 1: do the scene now?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was definitely manipulative, but was it in a
Speaker 1: bad way? I don't know about that. I think that
Speaker 1: he knew what I needed to get where I needed
Speaker 1: to go to do my job that day, and I
Speaker 1: didn't walk away from it feeling weird or bad or
Speaker 1: in hindsight as a as a highly therapized adult looking
Speaker 1: back on that, I don't think. You know, there were
Speaker 1: things that we did in the Little House that I
Speaker 1: look back on and go, well, that was maybe weird
Speaker 1: or odd or I should not have been put in
Speaker 1: that uncomfortable position, But this was not one of those times.
Speaker 1: This is actually, as an adult, I wish I had
Speaker 1: directors like that around. When I'm, you know, having a
Speaker 1: hard time getting into something, sometimes you knell a little boost.
Speaker 4: Alison talked about feeling that her character allowed her a
Speaker 4: safe space to express anger. And just you talking about
Speaker 4: losing your father when you were eleven, if it was
Speaker 4: a sort of safe space to express complicated grief.
Speaker 1: Oh, one hundred percent. We were not great at grief
Speaker 1: at home. I grew up in a family where those
Speaker 1: sort of feelings, sadness and anger are considered bad, and
Speaker 1: so we don't do that, and so crying is back
Speaker 1: then was considered like a bad thing to do, and
Speaker 1: don't let the kids cry, and they shouldn't cry, and
Speaker 1: they shouldn't so we didn't talk about it. We didn't
Speaker 1: really share feelings, not like we do now, and certainly
Speaker 1: not like I did with my kids. A perfect example
Speaker 1: is when my youngest son's pet mouse died and I
Speaker 1: insisted that we have an actual funeral for the mouse,
Speaker 1: and the kids didn't even want it, but I wanted
Speaker 1: them to have a moment to greet the mouse. I
Speaker 1: compensated for clearly, for stuff that I was missing. But
Speaker 1: I did have that outlet on the set, and that
Speaker 1: was that was a wonderful thing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The other kind of odd thing was after my father died,
Speaker 1: the family edict of not discussing it carry it through
Speaker 1: to the work. The adults were told not to discuss
Speaker 1: it with me, probably because it would have made it
Speaker 1: hard for me to do my job, which would have
Speaker 1: delayed and cost a lot of You know, this is
Speaker 1: a business, and I don't remember anyone being particularly overly
Speaker 1: solicitous or extra nice or anything. It's just sort of regular.
Speaker 1: But there were a couple extra hugs here and there
Speaker 1: during those months and during that time, and if I
Speaker 1: look back now, I can I remember that growd was
Speaker 1: kind of looking at me and clocking me and making
Speaker 1: sure that I was okay.
Speaker 4: What when you say some of the situations you feel
Speaker 4: like maybe you shouldn't have been put in. I know
Speaker 4: you wrote about Dean Butler being cast, you know, as Almonzo.
Speaker 4: I have to say, in doing the podcast, it made
Speaker 4: me rethink those episodes where you get married, because even
Speaker 4: the character was quite young, and I was young when
Speaker 4: I was watching it, so I thought sixteen was very old,
Speaker 4: but even as a grown up, I'd never actually thought
Speaker 4: it was. In that interview with him, I think I thought,
Speaker 4: you're right, I mean, so young and young for you
Speaker 4: to be put in a position with a grown man.
Speaker 2: What do you think about that now?
Speaker 1: Looking back, Well, I can tell you from the lens
Speaker 1: of today, you can't do that. There's no way they
Speaker 1: could shoot it. There's no way they would cast it
Speaker 1: that way, and there's certainly no way it would be
Speaker 1: handled the way it was handled, not with you know.
Speaker 1: Now we have intimacy coordinators and we have all this
Speaker 1: dialogue around being comfortable and feeling safe, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: Nobody talked to me about it. It was just it
Speaker 1: was nobody said, are you uncomfortable? Are you okay?
Speaker 2: Is this all right?
Speaker 1: It was just I remember being told that the Almonzo
Speaker 1: episodes were coming. Correct pronunciation, by the way, is al
Speaker 1: Manzo anyway? So I remember being told al Manso was coming,
Speaker 1: and my assumption was, you know, because Laura and al
Speaker 1: Manzo were not far apart in age in real life,
Speaker 1: not massively, so my assumption was there'd be someone coming.
Speaker 1: It was close in age to me, maybe one of
Speaker 1: my contemporaries. And then when they told me that it
Speaker 1: was Dean and they showed me a picture and then
Speaker 1: he came to the set, I was taken aback because
Speaker 1: my first thought was that's a man. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't even tell you what a girl I was. I
Speaker 1: mean I was a gidget. I was a tomboy. I
Speaker 1: was fourteen, fifteen years old, knock kneed, bucktooth, still had
Speaker 1: braces on, wasn't allowed to shave my things. Here comes
Speaker 1: this guy who shaves his face and then drives a car.
Speaker 1: I hadn't been on a date and kissed a boy.
Speaker 1: Fortunately we had a little run up to the actual
Speaker 1: marriage and stuff. But by the time we got to
Speaker 1: the Sweet sixteen episode and the first kiss and all
Speaker 1: of that, it was you know, I knew Dean, and
Speaker 1: I liked Dean, and I got along with Dean, but
Speaker 1: I still felt like I was out of my element,
Speaker 1: to put it mildly, and yet I powered through and
Speaker 1: I did it. But looking back in hindsight, if I
Speaker 1: were producing or directing or the parent, it would have
Speaker 1: been completely different for my kid. Again, it's a reflection
Speaker 1: of the times and where we were. And you know,
Speaker 1: you watch it now and it doesn't look weird even
Speaker 1: to me, And I'm watching it, going, oh god, I
Speaker 1: was so uncomfortable that day, but you know it didn't
Speaker 1: bother me at all. I'm climbing into bed with this
Speaker 1: grown up man and I still hadn't been on a
Speaker 1: date yet and we're having babies, and I did I
Speaker 1: think at that point I had kissed a boy.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's wild.
Speaker 4: I mean I think thinking back to how I watched
Speaker 4: it with it wasn't just that I wasn't questioning it.
Speaker 4: I don't recall anyone questioning it at the time. No,
Speaker 4: or even when I in reruns all through my team,
Speaker 4: like there was no there was no any anyone saying.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe think about this.
Speaker 4: It's almost like Laura went from she hit puberty and
Speaker 4: then she was married.
Speaker 2: There was very little.
Speaker 4: Experience and there was a very little, you know, difference
Speaker 4: between It's almost like they didn't know what to do
Speaker 4: with you once.
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I think that you know, there
Speaker 1: comes a time where you've you got to contribute to
Speaker 1: the family, and the only way to do that at
Speaker 1: that time is to either be a teacher or get
Speaker 1: married or both, because there were no other opportunities for women.
Speaker 1: So that it is a reflection of the actual time.
Speaker 1: But I would defy anyone. I don't care who it is.
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's Tom Hanks or Steven Spielberg
Speaker 1: to go to a studio or a network and say
Speaker 1: we're going to do a show where the fifteen year
Speaker 1: old marries the twenty six year old.
Speaker 4: The fifteen year old in real life, not even like
Speaker 4: a twenty two year old who can fast for fifteen
Speaker 4: exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: But now yeah, no, no, no, no no no, I
Speaker 1: just don't. You can't do it now and again, like
Speaker 1: I said, though when you watch it even today, it
Speaker 1: doesn't look odd and it certainly didn't appear awkward for
Speaker 1: either of us. But it was very awkward for me
Speaker 1: and uncomfortable. And I did do things like in scripts
Speaker 1: that would come down the pike that said, you know,
Speaker 1: and they kiss, I would go sneaking in and see,
Speaker 1: can be change it to hug please? But I had
Speaker 1: to advocate for myself because the adults were not having
Speaker 1: the conversation with me.
Speaker 2: And but you were listened to to some extent, I was.
Speaker 2: I was definitely listened to.
Speaker 1: I can feel myself getting like getting shy and embarrassed
Speaker 1: again like I did then I did. I did a
Speaker 1: lot of blushing.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 4: I think two, what we're hitting on is like in
Speaker 4: some of those episodes that dealt with women. It felt
Speaker 4: the show, even at the time, felt a little aggressive,
Speaker 4: and then some episodes that dealt with race or even
Speaker 4: the amount of black people who were cast in the
Speaker 4: show felt very ahead of its time. The episode with Solomon,
Speaker 4: you know, frequently I see it come across you know,
Speaker 4: social media.
Speaker 2: What do you hear about the.
Speaker 1: Most that, especially after COVID, you know, when everyone was
Speaker 1: kind of going back to Little House and they were
Speaker 1: watching Quarantine and Plague and all of those episodes that
Speaker 1: we did that summer of twenty twenty, when the contry
Speaker 1: was going through with the country, the world was going
Speaker 1: through that massive social upheaval and unrest all around George
Speaker 1: Floyd and Breonna Taylor and all of the horrible injustices
Speaker 1: that were going on, the Wisdom of Solomon came up
Speaker 1: a lot, and I was hearing on Twitter from people
Speaker 1: like Jamie Fox and Biola Davis who knew Little House
Speaker 1: in the Prairie was so woke, and I'm sitting and hungry.
Speaker 1: I did. I did. I knew because I had to
Speaker 1: do that scene where I had to try and wipe
Speaker 1: the black off of Todd Bridges's face, and I hated.
Speaker 1: I asked not to do it. I said to Michael,
Speaker 1: I can't do that. That's horrible. Who does that? He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we're trying to show people how wrong it is
Speaker 1: to be ignorant and how open Laura is to learning
Speaker 1: something new. And I said, okay, well then I'll do it.
Speaker 1: But you're I mean, I had to say, you're a
Speaker 1: real Negro person and wipe the black off with his face.
Speaker 1: Was absurd to me. But once it was explained that
Speaker 1: this is what we were doing and the lessons we
Speaker 1: were teaching, that was impactful to me because I realized
Speaker 1: that our show was more than just Laura's story. It
Speaker 1: was the story of our time at that time. Remember
Speaker 1: this was the seventies and the country was going through
Speaker 1: a great deal of civil unrest, the Civil Rights movement,
Speaker 1: the er I was post Vietnam. We did an episode
Speaker 1: about the soldier's return, Richard Mulligan playing the Civil War
Speaker 1: veteran coming home addicted to morphine while all of these
Speaker 1: veterans were coming back from Vietnam addicted to heroin. It
Speaker 1: was the very timely and topical the episodes we did
Speaker 1: dealing with anti semitism and nativism and the rights of
Speaker 1: Native Americans. I mean, these are themes that keep coming
Speaker 1: back and coming back and coming back, and we even
Speaker 1: touched on women's rights and chauvinism and the mistreatment of
Speaker 1: women at the same time while marginalizing women to do
Speaker 1: nothing but poor coffee, sometimes for many episodes at a time.
Speaker 1: One of the most stawn feminists I know was Karen Gressley,
Speaker 1: who was one of the great coffee pourers of all time.
Speaker 1: But then every once in a while they'd give her
Speaker 1: an episode where she put her foot down and said,
Speaker 1: well and remind Pa that she is his partner and
Speaker 1: not just his property. But again, we're reflecting the eighteen
Speaker 1: hundreds when women had zero rights, and a reflection of
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies where women had maybe a half a
Speaker 1: point of rights.
Speaker 3: But still, you know, certainly not where we are today
Speaker 3: and not where we need to be. Welcome back to
Speaker 3: our conversation with Melissa Gilbert. There were so many points
Speaker 3: we couldn't get to in our already lengthy episode on
Speaker 3: the television series, and something that we only slightly touched
Speaker 3: on were the comp all occasions of Michael Landon as
Speaker 3: a person. If you're a little house diehard, you might
Speaker 3: know that Karen Grassley, who played Caroline Ingoles on the
Speaker 3: show came out with a memoir a few years back
Speaker 3: that detailed a bitter contract dispute between her and Michael
Speaker 3: over her salary, and she also opened up about the
Speaker 3: general misogyny on.
Speaker 1: The Little House set in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 3: Unsure of how those dynamics might have affected the kids
Speaker 3: on set, we asked.
Speaker 1: Melissa what she thought of all this.
Speaker 2: Now, were you aware as a kid?
Speaker 4: I know just from talking to other cast members that
Speaker 4: the kids shot during the day and then some of
Speaker 4: the grown up scenes were shot sort of after the
Speaker 4: kids went home. But were we ever aware of the
Speaker 4: tension that Karen Grassley wrote about in her book between
Speaker 4: her and Michael and sort of the contract dispute.
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of the contract dispute. I was aware
Speaker 1: of the misogynistic humor by and large, not just Michael,
Speaker 1: as the entire all of the men of the crew.
Speaker 1: And I heard the jokes and they were some of
Speaker 1: them were horrible and completely inappropriate. You know, those sets
Speaker 1: are tend to be very rible body places anyway. But
Speaker 1: the anti women, or the demeaning of women, I should
Speaker 1: say jokes didn't impact me because I sort of didn't
Speaker 1: Some of them I didn't actually understand either, but like
Speaker 1: some of them were pretty raunchy, and I could see
Speaker 1: Karen stiffen and bristle and eye roll and walk away,
Speaker 1: and I knew that that was inappropriate and was making
Speaker 1: her feel bad and or angry. And I knew that
Speaker 1: that was wrong. I didn't. I was a kid, it
Speaker 1: wasn't I'm not going to get in the middle of
Speaker 1: the adults. I didn't in the middle of my parents arguing.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't about to get in the middle of
Speaker 1: my mom pa either. It's not my place in MI insight.
Speaker 1: I think you know. I read her book one hundred
Speaker 1: percent her experience, and it is a legitimate experience. Actually
Speaker 1: had lunch, oh gosh a while back with Jen Landon,
Speaker 1: and it was right when Karen's book came out, and
Speaker 1: she said to me, I don't understand what all the
Speaker 1: hooplaw is with all the Michael Landon supporters who are
Speaker 1: mad at Karen for telling the truth. She said, I
Speaker 1: totally imagine my dad was a misogynist back then. That's
Speaker 1: just the way it was. He was that guy. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that he's evil, it was just he was a
Speaker 1: reflection of his times. I mean, one of the things
Speaker 1: I think about often is what sort of television would
Speaker 1: Michael Lander be making now after the last few years.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it would be anything. He would
Speaker 1: be functioning the way he did then, and I think
Speaker 1: he'd be telling stories that are timely and important and topical.
Speaker 1: I think he'd be appalled at what's going on in
Speaker 1: the world today in many many ways, or at least
Speaker 1: I hope. But based on what I know of that man,
Speaker 1: he would have grown with the times.
Speaker 4: You can see evidence of that in some of the
Speaker 4: episodes and also touched by an Angel. I mean in
Speaker 4: certain way, he was so progressive, so much crying. It
Speaker 4: was so he cried so much all the time, and
Speaker 4: I think that is progressive. For he was also, you know, shirtless,
Speaker 4: oiled up, with perfect hair, and I think the collision
Speaker 4: of those two things is.
Speaker 2: A contradiction.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think so too. But he was a contradiction
Speaker 1: as well. This was a man who who espoused family
Speaker 1: values and community values and was married three times and
Speaker 1: had children with three different women, and was deeply flawed
Speaker 1: and human. But who isn't doesn't mean he's a bad person.
Speaker 1: It just means he's a human person, and he tried
Speaker 1: to tell stories that he felt were important and impactful.
Speaker 1: It's all you can ask from the filmmaker. What are
Speaker 1: the episodes you hear about the most? I hear about
Speaker 1: The Lord is My Shepherd a lot. It's my favorite too,
Speaker 1: and it's very hard for me to watch sometimes. It's
Speaker 1: even hard for me to talk about it. In fact,
Speaker 1: I can sort of feel like a lump in my throne. Now.
Speaker 1: I hear about Bunny and the race. People really dig
Speaker 1: the wheelchair push down the hill.
Speaker 4: That's the only time my mother walked into the family
Speaker 4: room and said, Laura seems mean. And I was like,
Speaker 4: Laura's amazing, and my mother said, I don't. I don't
Speaker 4: think that was a nice thing to do, and then
Speaker 4: exited the room.
Speaker 1: Well, Laura was pushed to the brink. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you Alison got her revenge. Many years ago. I had
Speaker 1: to go in for a colonoscopee and she took me
Speaker 1: and when it was over, they wouldn't let me walk
Speaker 1: out of the surgery center. I had to go out
Speaker 1: a wheelchair and she pushed it and she kept threatening
Speaker 1: to shut me down a number of different hills that day,
Speaker 1: even though I didn't. I said, I, you know something,
Speaker 1: my fallow, I didn't write it.
Speaker 2: Let me do that.
Speaker 1: The other thing I hear about a lot too is
Speaker 1: the mud fight people like a lot when Alison and
Speaker 1: I got physical.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I actually hear that from a lot
Speaker 4: of fans, and I think, I mean, and there's one
Speaker 4: of appeal to that, But I think it was having
Speaker 4: girls express sort of like complicated emotions to each other
Speaker 4: and that jealousy and competition, which felt very recognizable at
Speaker 4: that age.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that that that informed those performances,
Speaker 1: and maybe the audience was getting it subliminally, was that
Speaker 1: we really loved each other dearly. And I've always said,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't really have to necessarily get along
Speaker 1: all that well with someone you're doing a love scene with,
Speaker 1: but boy, you have to love and trust the person
Speaker 1: you're doing a fight sing with.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: I'm curiously how sort of I just want to talk
Speaker 4: a bit about your you know, after a little house career,
Speaker 4: the it feels like the professionalism of that set set
Speaker 4: you up well because then you became you know, president
Speaker 4: of SAG, you ran for office.
Speaker 2: Are the are there.
Speaker 4: Direct connections between coming off that experience that moved you
Speaker 4: into sort of other positions of power.
Speaker 1: There was a step in the middle that happened actually
Speaker 1: when I was fourteen. My mother took me to meet
Speaker 1: with a manager man named ray Cats Raymond Katz. He
Speaker 1: established my production company then when I was fourteen, Half
Speaker 1: Pint Productions, and asked what stories I wanted to tell,
Speaker 1: what characters I wanted to play, and my mom and
Speaker 1: I had talked about it before I went in, and
Speaker 1: we talked about doing The Miracle Worker and me playing
Speaker 1: Helen Keller, and that started while we were doing Little House.
Speaker 1: So I was actually producing and starring in my own
Speaker 1: films before Little House ended. So we did the Mira
Speaker 1: Porker Diary Friend Frank Splunder in the Grass, and that
Speaker 1: Little House ended and we continued working. So I learned
Speaker 1: how to produce at that time too. And also remember
Speaker 1: I wasn't just there working and playing. I was also
Speaker 1: on the Little House set, watching Michael and Kent and
Speaker 1: watching the crew and learning everybody's jobs, which was something
Speaker 1: Michael wanted me to do. I knew what the greensmen did,
Speaker 1: I knew what the Cress Services people did. I knew
Speaker 1: what the wranglers did. I knew what everyone's job was,
Speaker 1: so I had a respect for that sort of team.
Speaker 1: And when we went to do our own productions, we
Speaker 1: actually just took the little house crew with us. We
Speaker 1: had that same fantastic land and work ethic in the
Speaker 1: Half Pint productions as well. And so as I got older,
Speaker 1: I got more and more involved, and eventually, many many
Speaker 1: years later, ran and got elected as the President of
Speaker 1: Screen Actors Guild. And while I was there, I got
Speaker 1: elected to the executive Council of the afl CIO and
Speaker 1: the California Film Commission, and so I really got involved
Speaker 1: in the political realm, and that just seemed a natural progression.
Speaker 1: Many many years later, when I was asked to run
Speaker 1: for office, I thought, well, yeah, like, I think I
Speaker 1: can do this. It's supposed to be by the people
Speaker 1: for the people, right, so I'm the people.
Speaker 2: Why not Do you think about doing it again?
Speaker 1: No, I doubt I think I was rescued. I think
Speaker 1: my neck, which decided to give out and I needed
Speaker 1: to have a third massive spinal surgery, had to drop
Speaker 1: out of the race. That was twenty sixteen. It was
Speaker 1: kind of a it would have been a really difficult
Speaker 1: ear to a couple of years to serve and travel
Speaker 1: back and forth, obviously with my neck, but also with
Speaker 1: the political climate just worsening and worsening and worsening. I
Speaker 1: think that I was saved from having to deal with
Speaker 1: a lot more emotional turmoil than I do from a distance.
Speaker 1: Does not mean I'm not completely involved in I'm on
Speaker 1: the Democratic Committee up here. I'm very involved in the
Speaker 1: issues that I'm passionate about, and I think I can
Speaker 1: do a lot more work on the ground. I would
Speaker 1: rather be on the ground in a protest than in
Speaker 1: a chamber making those kinds of decisions and trying to
Speaker 1: pass laws in a system that's clearically broken and is
Speaker 1: not getting anywhere no matter what we do. The pendulum swings,
Speaker 1: the pendulum swings, the pendulum s faith, it's and it's
Speaker 1: just it's too frustrating. I feel like I can do much.
Speaker 2: More from here. What has it been like for you?
Speaker 2: You to shoulder the legacy of Laura. I was thinking
Speaker 2: of sort of like Anne of green Gables and Megan.
Speaker 4: Fellows that Anna green Gables is a fictional character, but
Speaker 4: you like Laura Ingles Wilder making the decision at age
Speaker 4: sixty five to sit down and write her life story
Speaker 4: has impacted your life in such enormous ways, it's hard
Speaker 4: to grasp, Like, what is it like.
Speaker 2: To shoulder all of that?
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds so trite to say this, but
Speaker 1: it is what it is. It's what I've been given,
Speaker 1: and it is a gift. I do feel very honored
Speaker 1: to have been chosen, and I do feel very blessed
Speaker 1: that this is my life. Because of it, I feel
Speaker 1: a certain responsibility to the stories, to the legacy of
Speaker 1: Laura and the Ingles family and Rose and everyone around her.
Speaker 1: It's interesting my husband and I were talking about this
Speaker 1: sort of subject recently because the first three characters really
Speaker 1: that I played of import in my life life our
Speaker 1: Lora Angeles Wilder, Helen Keller, and Ann Frank, not only
Speaker 1: to those tremendous acting opportunities, but all three of those
Speaker 1: women or people have monstrous legacies, I mean unbelievable import
Speaker 1: to the world, and not just to America but to
Speaker 1: the world. And so I think if I get too
Speaker 1: caught up in shouldering the responsibility of that, I'll feel very,
Speaker 1: very weighted down. I felt a lot more responsibility to
Speaker 1: behave like a nice young lady in public when you know,
Speaker 1: when I really just kind of wanted to be a
Speaker 1: bit of a wild child myself in my late teens
Speaker 1: and early twenties. I remember, actually, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I bought one letter. I wasn't allowed to read my
Speaker 1: fan mail, which is a good thing. There was one
Speaker 1: letter that I got a hold of when I was
Speaker 1: about fifteen that had been hidden from me. I think
Speaker 1: it came when I was about twelve. It was from
Speaker 1: a little girl who wrote and said, I wish I
Speaker 1: could be more like you, because my dad said he
Speaker 1: would hit me less if I was. And I'm really
Speaker 1: glad I didn't see that till I was older. But still,
Speaker 1: that's like, that's a lot for a kid, so they
Speaker 1: were right to keep that from me.
Speaker 2: That's a lot for anyone. That'd be a lot for you.
Speaker 2: Right now, These are the.
Speaker 1: Things that women will come up to me cry and say,
Speaker 1: you know, my childhood was miserable. I was molested by
Speaker 1: an uncle. And little house in the prairie was my escape.
Speaker 1: And I love that and I appreciate it, and I
Speaker 1: am there for it. But I can only do so
Speaker 1: much of that, and then I'm just depleted. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like being a therapist a little bit. Wow, it
Speaker 1: was a big show. It was a really it's an honor.
Speaker 1: It's a treasured responsibility, is the best way to put it.
Speaker 1: And I hope it continues in so many different ways too.
Speaker 1: I would love to continue telling the stories, living these stories,
Speaker 1: bringing these stories to life. We'll see you know.
Speaker 3: From our last episode, you know that Melissa Gilbert has
Speaker 3: most recently carried on Laura's legacy with her lifestyle brand,
Speaker 3: Modern Prairie.
Speaker 2: Our producer and co host Joe.
Speaker 1: Piazza stepped in to ask Melissa how it came to be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I love it, by the way, I
Speaker 5: love everything on the site.
Speaker 1: I want it all.
Speaker 5: I want to decorate my cabin with Modern Prairie. But
Speaker 5: I want to hear a little bit about how it
Speaker 5: came to be. How did this become a business?
Speaker 1: I have had this sort of little hatchling of an
Speaker 1: idea for a couple decades that there's something more to
Speaker 1: do with just the entire sort of prairie ethos. There
Speaker 1: was it all for me. It starts with them, of
Speaker 1: all objects, a butterbell and if you don't know what
Speaker 1: a butter bell is a butter keeper is I actually
Speaker 1: have one I'm looking at right now. It's a ceramic
Speaker 1: holder for butter. You put the butter in it, and
Speaker 1: you put it in the croc and you put it
Speaker 1: upside down in water, and it keeps your butter fresh
Speaker 1: and soft without having to refrigerate it. And they've been
Speaker 1: around for eons. People look at them and go, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's so cool. And I always thought, let's
Speaker 1: create something around a butterbell and go from there and
Speaker 1: take us back to these sweet, simple things, which really
Speaker 1: are the best things after all, just full on Loura
Speaker 1: angles Wilder celebration. But how do we do this? And
Speaker 1: so I had conversations with the branding department at the
Speaker 1: agency and put together decks of ideas of things that
Speaker 1: these could be. And it kind of came and went,
Speaker 1: came and went, but it was always in the back
Speaker 1: of my mind. And two years ago, on my birthday,
Speaker 1: I had friends over up here, my friends Johnny and Roswell,
Speaker 1: who are the first friends we made up here, and
Speaker 1: I was talking about this idea for this retail line
Speaker 1: kind of lifestyle the little house I don't know, and
Speaker 1: I said, I want to do this, and I showed
Speaker 1: them the deck. They went and Johnny said, I know
Speaker 1: this woman, Nicole o'hazi, who has a company who's looking
Speaker 1: for something like this. Let me connect you to well.
Speaker 1: Nicole and I got along like a house of fire,
Speaker 1: like instantaneously, and we had a few conversations about what
Speaker 1: it could be, and she came back to me with
Speaker 1: her version of it, which was a bajillion times better
Speaker 1: than my deck, and we signed papers and said let's go.
Speaker 1: And it really started out as yes, a retail line
Speaker 1: sort of, but there's more to it than that. It's
Speaker 1: a place for obviously women over a certain age, the
Speaker 1: mature woman like me, and it's not just about buying things.
Speaker 1: It's now grown into a community. And what's fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: You know, we have all these workshops and everything from
Speaker 1: you know, how to paint with watercolor, to how to
Speaker 1: deal with grief during the holidays, to how to get unstuck,
Speaker 1: which is a big thing with women over a certain age.
Speaker 1: You know, their kids are gone. We're reassessing what we
Speaker 1: want to do with this last third of our lives.
Speaker 1: Do we want to stay in the business we're in,
Speaker 1: Do we want to follow our passion? Do we want
Speaker 1: to travel?
Speaker 2: Are we?
Speaker 1: Are we alone? Are we caring for aging parents? Are
Speaker 1: we you know, all of these things that we're dealing
Speaker 1: with at this part in our lives. There's no space
Speaker 1: for a community for people to talk about these things.
Speaker 1: So we started this sort of we created this space
Speaker 1: with these workshops, and in the beginning, you know, we
Speaker 1: have these very deep emotional workshops. While it's reached a
Speaker 1: point where they're talking to each other and supporting each
Speaker 1: other through transitions, through changes, through they're becoming a community.
Speaker 1: And what's kind of the heart of Prairie for me
Speaker 1: is the community aspect. There's nothing more reassuring than knowing
Speaker 1: that you're not the only one who's experiencing whatever it is,
Speaker 1: whether it's a most physical, psychological, doesn't matter. To know
Speaker 1: that there are people who've gone through ahead of you,
Speaker 1: and that there are people coming up behind you who
Speaker 1: will follow in your footsteps and come to you for
Speaker 1: that advice. That's what community is, and we support each
Speaker 1: other and we it's about love, and that's again it
Speaker 1: goes back to Lourer Engles Wilder and the Engles family
Speaker 1: and the sweet simple things really are those are the
Speaker 1: real things, compassion, tolerance, understanding, and love. So that's the
Speaker 1: basis of modern prairie, and now it's just grown into
Speaker 1: this thing.
Speaker 5: What do you think it is about this kind of
Speaker 5: prairie aesthetic, the simplicity, this back to basics that is
Speaker 5: so cozy for people. Is it nostalgia? Is it? Is
Speaker 5: it just aesthetics? It's just nice to look at. It's
Speaker 5: modern prairie. It's the nap dresses. There is a whole
Speaker 5: cottage core thing happening.
Speaker 1: Why do people love it so much as it is cozy?
Speaker 1: I think I think we all really rediscovered cozy during
Speaker 1: the lockdown too. I mean, I defy anyone to tell
Speaker 1: me that they were doing zooms without pajama bottoms or sweatpants.
Speaker 1: I mean we were dressing from the waist up for
Speaker 1: whatever it was. And I think, you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: value in that. When you can't get toilet paper, suddenly
Speaker 1: everything else kind of falls away, right, I mean, manicures
Speaker 1: are irrelevant, Eyelash extensions are irrelevant, going to the movies,
Speaker 1: it's not important. What's really important is being able to
Speaker 1: have contact with your loved ones, making sure they're safe
Speaker 1: and comfortable and being comfortable yourself. Look, when that happened,
Speaker 1: everybody was baking bread so much so that nobody could
Speaker 1: get flour. That says something. Bread is the ultimate comfort food, right,
Speaker 1: and it's the least expensive. It's been around for eons.
Speaker 1: So bread is like the grounding, hardy, cozy food, and
Speaker 1: we all went back to that. So I think modern
Speaker 1: Prairie's space to remind people of that cozy basic wellmy war,
Speaker 1: those nostalgic feelings brought up to the current times. Hence
Speaker 1: the modern.
Speaker 5: There's also a beautiful comparison to be made in modern
Speaker 5: Prairie is this community for mature women who are looking
Speaker 5: at the next part of their life and thinking what
Speaker 5: does this look like? And it was very similar for Laura.
Speaker 5: She wanted something different in that last half of her life.
Speaker 5: She was writing these books as a mature woman of
Speaker 5: a certain age, and I think there's a really interesting
Speaker 5: parallel there.
Speaker 2: Did you think about that.
Speaker 1: When you were launching That's something that is kind of
Speaker 1: a universal experience for all women. I think you guys
Speaker 1: will find as you age to where I am now,
Speaker 1: there's a it's not a midlife crisis, it's sort of
Speaker 1: a not even midlife. I mean, who lives to be
Speaker 1: a one hundred and sixteen ladies, It's a mid life
Speaker 1: ree assessment, right, Am I doing what brings me joy?
Speaker 1: Am I doing what makes me feel like I'm contributing
Speaker 1: the most? Am I forcing myself to do something I
Speaker 1: don't want to do? Laura definitely did that. It also
Speaker 1: grew I think for her, based on historical research and
Speaker 1: my research, it grew out of her place of necessity too,
Speaker 1: because the craft in the teen's twenties wiped out the
Speaker 1: entire family's finances, and Laura had the book, she had
Speaker 1: been writing it, and necessity put them in a position
Speaker 1: where she had to then actually make them sellable, which
Speaker 1: is why they became children's books are young adult books.
Speaker 1: So it was a combination of things. But I think
Speaker 1: it really maybe not so intentionally Laura. Laura probably blazed
Speaker 1: a trail into how to go through that kind of
Speaker 1: transition from you know, farm wife with a true partnership
Speaker 1: with her husband, which was also very unusual for that time.
Speaker 1: I mean they were they did not do anything without
Speaker 1: consulting one another, nor did they tell each other what
Speaker 1: to do, which I thought was fascinating. They had a
Speaker 1: really modern relationship. Laura al Manzo. Al Manzo actually, if anything,
Speaker 1: she was the one in charge. I think, yes, I
Speaker 1: think too, And I think we should make the book
Speaker 1: people happy and call him by his real name.
Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting to me, Melissa, when you say so
Speaker 4: much of modern prairie is prettiness, because just when you
Speaker 4: said that, so much of Little House's prettiness, right, Like,
Speaker 4: throughout all of the struggles she writes about, there's a
Speaker 4: focus on pleasing things, right, the pleasing how pas scallops,
Speaker 4: the paper on the shelves, and the sprigs of flowers
Speaker 4: and the buttons, like, there is a real focus on
Speaker 4: the details of prettiness throughout these horrible events. So that's
Speaker 4: an interesting sort of crossover that I hadn't That made
Speaker 4: me rethink sort of certain descriptions in the book.
Speaker 1: Those maybe the things that we focus on when things
Speaker 1: are hard, you know, let's look to that. And then again,
Speaker 1: if you go back to the books, the way she
Speaker 1: wrote about food, food was like a religion, you know,
Speaker 1: and glorious. I mean, I remember reading those books when
Speaker 1: I was eight nine years old and being hungry and
Speaker 1: my mouth watering as I'm turning these pages and reading
Speaker 1: about you know, maple candy and the snow and which
Speaker 1: I've I made this year for the first time. Oh
Speaker 1: how did it go? It was fascinating. It's taffy. It
Speaker 1: doesn't get it. I thought it would get like crunchy,
Speaker 1: but it's taffy. It hardens into like a almost like
Speaker 1: a CARAMELI like a maple caramel. It's good. You have
Speaker 1: to do it with butter, though it has to be
Speaker 1: butter and maple.
Speaker 5: Serup?
Speaker 2: Would you ever? I don't know?
Speaker 4: You I must you must have visited some of the
Speaker 4: Laura houses over the years. Is there any potential of
Speaker 4: modern prairie moving into these locations or or what was
Speaker 4: that experience like of going to the houses?
Speaker 1: Like funny that you bring that up, because it hadn't
Speaker 1: even occurred to me to take Marbury. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: not fricking mortar of any kind yet. So and and
Speaker 1: you know, there there may be a world where we
Speaker 1: collaborate with a specific museum to create something for them
Speaker 1: through one of our makers. By the way, all of
Speaker 1: the people who make our products, or women just saying
Speaker 1: that's part of it. We're supporting female businesses. Also that
Speaker 1: that's actually really important aspect of this. I have visited
Speaker 1: them all. It has taken me a very long time.
Speaker 1: When I did the Little House Musical, when I played Ma,
Speaker 1: when I played Caroline, we if we were playing a
Speaker 1: city that was within two three hours of a homestead,
Speaker 1: the whole company would get in a bus and we
Speaker 1: would all go. And so that was my first chance
Speaker 1: to see this. Smet and Plum Creek and Walnut Grove
Speaker 1: I did. We were nowhere near Mansfield, so I didn't
Speaker 1: get to go. We went to Mansfield. My husband and
Speaker 1: I went last year we were doing a number of
Speaker 1: cross country drives and a year before last actually take
Speaker 1: that back, and I decided to go when they were
Speaker 1: closed for the day. So we went in, just the
Speaker 1: two of us, and they opened the museum and the
Speaker 1: houses for us. And that property, not just because it's
Speaker 1: the most recent one in my memory, but that property
Speaker 1: more than any of them is, especially because that's where
Speaker 1: they're buried, and that's where Roses buried. That place really
Speaker 1: got me because you could really that was their place,
Speaker 1: you know, the counters in the kitchen that he cussed
Speaker 1: and built, because she was so tiny. It was just
Speaker 1: enchanting and it felt incredibly special being there, and we
Speaker 1: were actually get a camp in the campground across the way,
Speaker 1: and there was a tornado warning and so we decided
Speaker 1: to drive to We drove to Saint Louis in this
Speaker 1: insane storm and it was very I kept saying to Tim,
Speaker 1: my husband, can you imagine doing this in a wagon?
Speaker 1: I mean, we're in the cars blowing all over the
Speaker 1: highway and there's hail and you know, tornadoes, god knows where.
Speaker 1: It was pitch black, but just crazy weather. And all
Speaker 1: I could think was what those crossings must have been
Speaker 1: like for the Ingles family from South Dakota to Missouri,
Speaker 1: to Florida to San Francisco to visit rows and there's
Speaker 1: a toughness. I think that that also to that beauty
Speaker 1: that we have to tap into as well. That that
Speaker 1: was the thing too, is you know, I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that came out of the pandemic and
Speaker 1: the resurgence of or re appreciation of Little House is
Speaker 1: there a reminder that if we can make it through that,
Speaker 1: we can make it through this.
Speaker 2: Everyone at all the houses loves you.
Speaker 4: By the way, just to pass on a little where
Speaker 4: your ears burning your name was obviously came up frequently
Speaker 4: in a very genuine and loving way. Ah, that's no
Speaker 4: what Everyone had such nice things to say about you.
Speaker 1: Oh well that's good. That's that mustn't me. And I
Speaker 1: was in a good mood on the day. It would
Speaker 1: be terrible if you sit mutely whipped to all those
Speaker 1: places and they just don't like it. You were so.
Speaker 2: No, it came up. It came up without us asking
Speaker 2: it was. I wasn't actually inquired or anything.
Speaker 4: It just came up out of And you know, when
Speaker 4: you're out there, everybody there is very down to earth
Speaker 4: and genuine.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's pretense, there's no. They just love the
Speaker 1: entire angles experience the family Lauren. And they are they
Speaker 1: they are the keepers of the legacy. I mean I
Speaker 1: look at those guys and I feel like a little
Speaker 1: bit of a poser, you know. They they're in it.
Speaker 1: They're touching her belongings on a daily basis, which I please.
Speaker 1: When we were on tour with the musical, there was
Speaker 1: one which place we went to, man, it was De
Speaker 1: Smet and they took me into a vault and they
Speaker 1: opened a drawer and pulled out one of her nightgowns
Speaker 1: and let me touch it. And I just lost it.
Speaker 1: I just I had step away, so I was afraid
Speaker 1: I would get tears on the nightgown and that would
Speaker 1: be bad.
Speaker 3: It.
Speaker 1: So that's that. I think that kind of in a nutshell,
Speaker 1: goes back to your question about how I feel about
Speaker 1: carrying this sort of mantle. I touch her nightgown and
Speaker 1: I cry, so obviously there's a lot of weight there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we heard the fiddle being played and that felt.
Speaker 1: Oh please. I had Michael still for years, which I
Speaker 1: finally auctioned off one of the fiddles. There was a
Speaker 1: prop and I could barely contain myself. I'd open the
Speaker 1: case just to smell it.
Speaker 2: Do you have thoughts on Rose?
Speaker 4: I mean, we asked everyone and because of course the
Speaker 4: you know, the conspiracy. Did she write the books but
Speaker 4: also Rose herself? It's a lot, But what are your
Speaker 4: thoughts on Rose?
Speaker 2: Do you have any?
Speaker 1: I think that that based on all of the reading
Speaker 1: I've done, in the research I've done, I think that
Speaker 1: roses to Laura what Laura was to Ma. This is
Speaker 1: like a generational evolution of rebellion that has passed on.
Speaker 1: And I think that as much as Laura sort of
Speaker 1: gave her mother fits in her wildness. Rose took it
Speaker 1: so much further, and some of it was by choice
Speaker 1: and some of it was just in her I think
Speaker 1: from what I understand, you know, at that point in
Speaker 1: her life, Laura in Mansfield had gone from being basically
Speaker 1: a washer woman doing other people's laundry to a very
Speaker 1: important member of society and a leader of the society,
Speaker 1: and had reached this really interesting place in her life.
Speaker 1: For the wild child, she was to be someone who
Speaker 1: was so concerned about what other people thought of her
Speaker 1: because she was so wildly uncomfortable with her daughter coming
Speaker 1: home with a woman her pants wearing, smoking, divorced daughter
Speaker 1: who really was living her life is her completely authentic self,
Speaker 1: and coming into this world where everything was very rigid
Speaker 1: and very you know, where Caroline had sort of that
Speaker 1: religious church going fear of outsiders. Laura just didn't want
Speaker 1: anyone to know that. She projected this image of who
Speaker 1: she was, and I don't think Rose fit into that. However,
Speaker 1: their relationship was so sympiotic, you know, their finances were
Speaker 1: in twine, they were so in met I think that
Speaker 1: they had, you know, a very complicated other daughter relationship
Speaker 1: which we can all relate to if anybody could could
Speaker 1: or possibly unravel the complications of any mother daughter relationship.
Speaker 1: For me, I will give them a medal. It just
Speaker 1: it is what it is. That's why God blessed me
Speaker 1: with four sons. I do absolutely believe that Rose helped
Speaker 1: craft the books. I don't think she wrote them. I
Speaker 1: think she crafted them. I think she yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you read Pionaregirl, it's incredibly unwieldy, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it would have sold back then. I think that
Speaker 1: the editors were right. They needed to find a market.
Speaker 1: I mean, people weren't spending money, so that it had
Speaker 1: to be something special, and of course making it something
Speaker 1: for children was entirely appropriate. And I think Rose really
Speaker 1: helped to do that and to take these things apart
Speaker 1: and put them back together. One hundred percent. I think
Speaker 1: she was an absolute ghost editor. I don't think she
Speaker 1: was a ghostwriter. I think many of us owe a
Speaker 1: lot to Laura and Rose for being the trailblazers that
Speaker 1: they were, what they did for female authors and what
Speaker 1: they did for women in general by telling that their
Speaker 1: sides of those stories and that history is major. I
Speaker 1: don't know if we would have had a woman's voice
Speaker 1: back then you know, if we would have been able
Speaker 1: to look back on a woman's voice it had it
Speaker 1: not been.
Speaker 2: For them, Melissa, We're so grateful.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ah, thanks you guys. I so appreciate it.
Speaker 2: This was fun, is it? Melissa? Amazing?
Speaker 3: We had such a great time talking to her. If
Speaker 3: fulfilled a few childhood dreams in that room. We hope
Speaker 3: you enjoyed this. If there's other guests we've talked to
Speaker 3: throughout the show that you'd want to hear an extended
Speaker 3: interview from, then tell.
Speaker 1: Us maybe we'll release more of these in the future.
Speaker 3: This episode was produced by me Emily Maronov as well
Speaker 3: as Mary Do and Shina Ozaki. Sound design and mixing
Speaker 3: was done by Amanda Brose Smith. Our wonderful theme and
Speaker 3: additional music was composed by Elise McCoy. We are executive
Speaker 3: produced by Glennis McNichol, Joe Piazza, Nikki e Tor and
Speaker 3: Ali Perry. Thank you, as always to CDM Studios for
Speaker 3: recording this conversation. This is the conversation that first paired
Speaker 3: us with our guardian Angel engineer, Kathleen.
Speaker 2: We love you, Kathleen.
Speaker 3: If you haven't been following us on social media, Can
Speaker 3: you even call yourself a Wilder fan? Get on their people,
Speaker 3: Follow us on Instagram at Wilder Underscore podcast, and on
Speaker 3: TikTok at Wilder Podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.