Melissa Gilbert

Melissa Gilbert was adopted one day after her birth by actor and comedian Paul Gilbert and actress and dancer Barbara Crane. Her adoptive brother, Jonathan Gilbert, appeared with her on Little House on the Prairie, while her half-sister Sara Gilbert became known for playing Darlene on Roseanne. Gilbert was raised in her mother's Jewish religion.

Gilbert was married to actor Bo Brinkman from 1988 to 1994, and they had a son, Dakota Paul Brinkman. She was married to actor Bruce Boxleitner from 1995 to 2011, and they had a son, Michael Garrett Boxleitner, who was named after Little House on the Prairie star Michael Landon. She has been married to actor Timothy Busfield since 2013.

Gilbert began acting as a child after appearing in dozens of commercials and guest roles on television. In 1973, she won the role of Laura Ingalls Wilder on NBC's Little House on the Prairie after auditioning against more than 500 other young actresses. The series ran from 1974 to 1983 and made her a familiar television star.

Her performance brought several important early roles and honors. During the show's run, she played Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, Anne Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank, and Wilma Dean "Deanie" Loomis in Splendor in the Grass. She received a Young Artist Award for her performance on Little House on the Prairie and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for The Miracle Worker.

Gilbert received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1985 for her contribution to television. In 1998, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. She later returned to the Little House story as Caroline "Ma" Ingalls in the touring production of Little House on the Prairie: The Musical from 2008 through 2010.

After Little House on the Prairie, Gilbert continued to work primarily in television films and series. Her roles included Jean Donovan in Choices of the Heart, Sara Calloway in Family Secrets, and Anna Sheridan in three episodes of Babylon 5, in which she appeared with Bruce Boxleitner. She also voiced Barbara Gordon and Batgirl in Batman: The Animated Series.

Gilbert appeared in productions including Nip/Tuck, 7th Heaven, The Christmas Pageant, Secrets and Lies, Hometown Christmas, and When We Last Spoke. She competed on the fourteenth season of Dancing with the Stars in 2012 with professional dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy. After falling during a Paso Doble and suffering a mild concussion, she returned to the competition and finished in fifth place.

She starred in an Off-Off-Broadway production of Geraldine Aron's one-woman play My Brilliant Divorce in 2018. Her screen work also expanded into producing, including the film Guest Artist, and she directed the television film Child Stars: Their Story.

Gilbert was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 2001 after defeating actress Valerie Harper. She won a second two-year term in 2003, defeating Kent McCord, and left the office in 2005 after announcing that she would not seek a third term.

In 2015, Gilbert announced a Democratic campaign for Michigan's eighth congressional district. She withdrew from the race in 2016 because of health issues, including longstanding neck and spine problems. She later launched Modern Prairie, a lifestyle app aimed at women, in 2022.

Gilbert has written the memoirs Prairie Tale and Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, A Life Rediscovered, as well as the children's book Daisy and Josephine and My Prairie Cookbook: Memories and Frontier Food from My Little House to Yours.

Gilbert has spoken about recovering from an addiction to prescription medication and alcohol in her late thirties. She also has misophonia, a condition involving strong reactions to particular sounds.

While performing in Little House on the Prairie: The Musical, she learned that she had been working with a broken back for months. She underwent lower-spine surgery in 2010 to replace a disc and fuse a vertebra. She later had her breast implants removed for health reasons in 2015.

Her history of neck and spine problems, along with injuries sustained during Dancing with the Stars and a later accident involving a collapsed balcony, contributed to her decision to leave the congressional campaign.