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Laura Ingalls-Melissa Gilbert |
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Born May 8th, 1964 in Los Angeles, Melissa was adopted by actor parents Paul Gilbert and Barbara Crane when she
was only a day old.
She lost out on a part in the remake of “Miracle on 34th Street” but two weeks later, landed the
role that was to make her internationally famous, Laura Ingalls in “Little House on the Prairie”. Her brother,
Jonathan, (an actor as well) played the role of Willie Oleson in the series.
After “Little House” went off the air, she took time for her college studies but still made headlines
by dating people such as Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe.
She married actor Bo Brinkman in 1988 with whom she has a son called Cody. Three years after her divorce in 1992,
she married another famous TV actor, Bruce Boxleitner, with whom she has a son called Michael Garrett, named for actor Michael
Landon as well as a family friend.
The youngest person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Melissa went on to star in and direct many
productions. A recent TV biography entitled “Melissa Gilbert: Beyond the Prairie” talks about her life after “Little
House”. |
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| Charles Caroline Laura Mary Carrie Grace Ingalls |
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Laura Ingalls Wilder
Biographical NotesDate of birth: February 7, 1867, Pepin, Wisconsin Date of death: February 10, 1957, Mansfield,
Missouri Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder. Author, editor, and columnist. Homesteaded with parents and sisters in Pepin,
Wisconsin, 1867-69 and 1871-73; Montgomery County, Kansas, 1869-71; Plum Creek (near Walnut Grove) and Walnut Grove (Redwood
County), Minnesota, 1874-76 and 1877-80; Burr Oak, Iowa, 1876-77; Silver Lake (later DeSmet), South Dakota (Dakota Territory),
1880-90; Spring Valley (Fillmore County), Minnesota, 1890; and Florida, 1891. Worked as seamstress in DeSmet, 1891-94; farmed
at Rocky Ridge Farm, Mansfield, Missouri, 1894-1957. Columnist for periodicals, 1911-32, including as household editor of
the Missouri Realist, 1911-23. Author of nine children's books, most based directly on her life experiences; all were
immensely popular chronicles of frontier life on the prairie in the 1870s-80s. Received the Newbery Honor Book award, 1940,
1941, and 1942, and the Henry Hartman Young Readers Award from Pacific Northwest Library Association, 1939. The Laura Ingalls
Wilder Award was established by the Children's Library Association in 1954. The popular television series "Little House on
the Prairie," 1974-84 (now in syndication), was based on her stories of growing up in Walnut Grove. Married Almanzo J. Wilder
and had one daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, who was also an author. Her family genealogy can be traced back through her father,
Charles P. Ingalls, to the early 1500s (see the book The Pepin Story of the Ingalls Family).
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