Confessions of a Prairie Bitch

by Alison Arngrim

  My brief experience in drama class was so horrible that I think I was better off in detention. At the beginning of each class, we would be given a scene to read, and the teacher would assign parts. It never progressed beyond a group cold reading. No instruction was given; and we engaged in no discussion about what anything meant. Not that it mattered, as far as I was concerned. I never got any parts, not due to any specific performance defect on my part, but because there was a girl in the class who decided she wanted first crack at any roles and wished to reduce the competition. She accomplished this by stuffing me into a broom closet every morning. It worked. She and a few friends would beat me into submission and stuff me in the closet and cover me with coats. By the time I crawled out of the closet and into the drama room, all the parts were assigned. (I don’t know why I never thought to try this technique at auditions. Think of all the roles I could have gotten had I had the good sense to shove Jodie Foster into a cupboard!)

  I did finally tell the teacher what was happening. She was a bored, listless type who didn’t interact with the class much, but this time she did tell my captors that their behavior was going to cost them points off their final grade. They were very upset about this threat, and when class let out that day, they announced they were going to beat the crap out of me. Again.

  I took off running and this time was lucky enough to run into a group of my friends. Unfortunately, they were my friends from the “gifted” algebra program: great if you needed to borrow a slide rule, but not the group you call to back you up in a fistfight. But what I didn’t know was that with all this violence at my new school, some of their parents had packed them off to after-school self-defense and karate classes. I don’t know if any of them really knew what they were doing, but they put on a hell of a show.

  There was great yowling and shrieking, as the drama club diva and her friends found themselves set upon by a pack of future certified public accountants, all flailing about in their best Bruce Lee impersonations. Even if it was only the element of surprise, it worked and sent the drama bullies running. I was extremely touched that my friends were willing to jump up at a moment’s notice, and even though fighting wasn’t really their thing, they had been prepared to do their worst to protect me. I had been saved by geeks.

  Then one day, the running, the hiding, and the pummeling came to an end. I was walking across the school grounds, when I was approached by a group of five girls, and I use the term loosely. They were very large teenagers, tall and muscular, and they looked like they had been in more than a couple of fights in their lives. In fact, they looked like they belonged to the Crips, or the “ladies auxiliary” thereof. They had these really fabulous 1970s’ Get Christie Love!–style outfits, with big furry boots and miniskirts. I remember one girl had an enormous metal comb stuck in the top of her hair. It occurred to me that she probably used it as more than a decorative accessory.

  They surrounded me.

  “Your name Alison?” the tallest one asked. Oh great, I thought, they have my name; it’s a contract hit.

  “Yes.” I didn’t even bother to try to lie my way out of whatever was coming.

  “Are you the one who’s on Little House on the Prairie?” she continued, still in hostile interrogation mode.

  “Uh, yes.” Now, this is taking an odd turn, I thought.

  “You play Nellie, right?” she asked.

  Where the hell was this conversation going, I wondered. “Um, yes, I do,” I answered, not sure if I was going to regret it or not.

  “You’re Nellie? You are bad, girlfriend! You beat the crap outta that stupid Laura Ingalls!” They were all smiles. In fact, they were positively thrilled. They laughed and giggled and told me how much they enjoyed my “badness.”

  I had been mistaken. These girls weren’t my enemies. They were my fans. After that day, I never had any trouble with people wanting to beat me up at school. Ever.

  There seemed no end to the confidence-building exercises. But I was still working on my shyness issues on the set. I sometimes had trouble talking to “new people” one on one, and I was now faced with a cast and crew of over a hundred, some of them with rather intimidating personalities, to say the least. I had hoped at first I could just show up, do my job, and lay low, but it was not to be. I would be forced into confronting my issues. First I had Bill Claxton asking me to stop looking at the ground when I talked to people, and now I was about to be totally blindsided.

  Midway through the first season, my agent called my father to report that my shyness had been taken for “haughtiness” or unfriendliness. I was stunned. But then it occurred to me, if I’m playing a bitch on camera, and then off camera I just sit there and don’t talk, what other information do my fellow cast mates have to go on? I could see where confusion could arise. But this was more than that. There were actually rumors that I was “difficult” or a diva. This was considered serious enough to possibly affect my employment. My parents told me that this was a serious situation that demanded immediate action. But what? I was going to have to try to be more outgoing.

  I realize that to anyone who knows me now, this statement is possibly the most ludicrous request imaginable. But I really was shy back then. I asked my parents what on earth I was supposed to do. “Fake it,” was the answer.

  First off, I needed to dress more casually. I had been wearing a simple white button-down shirt to work, so I would have something that I didn’t have to pull over my head, in case I had to put on the wig and makeup before dressing. I switched to something more colorful to make myself seem less stuck up.

  My mother was not terribly helpful in this department. “Maybe you could a wear a hat?” she feebly suggested. I showed up the next day in a carefully selected cute outfit, complete with a spunky, tomboyish yet adorable baseball cap. Then I simply forced myself to talk to people. Auntie Marion was quite sympathetic to my plight. She had been terribly, almost pathologically shy growing up and had learned many tricks over the years to overcome it. She said the easiest one was to ask people questions. “Most people are perfectly happy to talk about themselves if you let them,” she counseled me.

  I also did my research. I started reading various celebrity tell-all autobiographies and discovered that many famous actresses, usually those known for being loud and brassy, were actually horribly shy and had simply learned to mask it with another personality. I found out that this list included the actress Nancy Walker and one of my heroes, Bette Midler. And that was how I learned to embrace what I still refer to as the “Bette Midler School of Overcompensation.”

  I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and simply did the opposite of what seemed instinctive. When I wanted to retreat, I barged up to people and started talking. When I wanted to look down, I looked up. When I wanted to cringe, I laughed. I even took to sitting on people’s laps if they seemed so inclined. I kept thinking, This can’t possibly work. I feel like an idiot. Surely they will see through this ridiculous charade.

  No one did. Within two days my agent called to say how happy he was to hear I was “fitting in.” My colleagues spoke about how nice it was I had “come out of my shell.” I learned that people see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. It takes very little to help them along.

  I did, however, have an extra ace up my sleeve: Melissa Gilbert. She had found out about the rumors and, having been the first to befriend me, knew they weren’t true. So what did she do about this at the age of nine? She called a meeting. One day, out in Simi, she went around the set and told all the little girls who were extras on the show, the ones who played the other girls in Miss Beadle’s class, that they were to come to lunch in her dressing room. We all crammed ourselves into the tiny trailer, sitting on the couch, the desk, and the floor, anywhere there was space. After a few minutes of chatting, one of the girls remarked that she was surprised at how nice I was, that she had heard I wasn’t any fun.

  Melissa pounced on this statement. “I knew it! I already know someone’s bee
n spreading rumors about Alison! Where’d you hear it?” she demanded. The girl nervously pointed at one of the other girls. “She told me!” The accused girl backpedaled furiously. “I didn’t start it!” They all seemed panic stricken at the thought of being interrogated by Melissa Gilbert. After an assortment of protests and cross-accusations, they finally narrowed it down to one of the girls who had not taken us up on the lunch invite. But then one of the older girls spoke up. “It wasn’t really her, though. It was her mother.”

  Melissa was not surprised. She shook her head. She explained to the girls that in this sort of competitive environment, it would not be unheard of for a stage mother to start rumors about another girl in the hopes of getting her fired and furthering her own child’s career. But, she cautioned, we must not let them get away with it. “We have to stick together, okay?” she said. The girls nodded.

  “There’s going to be a lot of stuff like this, people trying to turn us against each other,” she continued. “From now on, if any of you hear anything about one of us—especially if it comes from one of the stage moms—you come to me first, okay?”

  We all agreed. Her motion passed unanimously. She had just successfully organized a group of child actors against the stage mothers. There were no more incidents of this kind. And from then on, anything that happened on that set did not happen without her knowledge. She was now Don Corleone. For some of us, her growing up to be president of the Screen Actors Guild wasn’t exactly a shock.

  But then there was Melissa Sue. I tried to be nice to her; Auntie Marion insisted on it. It didn’t seem to work, though. Eventually, being nice to Melissa Sue Anderson became a Zen meditative exercise. Waiting for her to respond was like waiting to hear the sound of one hand clapping. I always said, “Good morning,” or, more accurately, a sickeningly cheerful “Good morning, Missy!” This was usually greeted with either a cold stare or a kind of “uh-huh” sound muttered under her breath. Often it was less than this. Sometimes she didn’t even look up from what she was reading, as if I wasn’t even there.

  I did grow frustrated and sarcastic. I admit that, when one day, after what must have been months of this, she looked at me quizzically and said, “Uh, good morning?” I responded with “There! Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” I know, this is not what we call positive reinforcement, but she was just so damn exasperating.

  Constantly being compared to her was tiresome as well. All three of us girls were under a microscope, with the producers, the crew, and all the stage mothers constantly measuring and noting every stage of development, comparing us to each other as if we were sisters.

  The funny thing was, we couldn’t have been more different. Melissa Gilbert was a nice Jewish girl from a wealthy family in Encino, Melissa Sue Anderson was a devout Catholic in a single-parent home, and I was raised by an itinerant band of Canadian actors. The two Melissas and I were like some old joke about a priest, a minister, and a rabbi in a lifeboat. It was a wonder we spoke to each other at all.

  And we were not the same age. I was the eldest, which confused many adults on the set. Melissa Sue looked older than I did, and so often when trying to excuse what was by then politely being referred to as her “aloofness,” people would say, “It’s a teenage phase. I’m sure Alison will be doing the same thing any minute.” Auntie Marion was quick to correct them on this issue. “Alison is almost a year older than Missy. I do not recall her ever going through a phase quite like this.” Although Auntie Marion stressed patience when dealing with “Missy,” she wasn’t past using her as an example. “Poor girl,” she’d say, “if she doesn’t change, that meanness will show up in her face. It always does, you know.” She informed me that people’s real selves always reveal themselves eventually; that those who are selfish, spoiled, and mean will age sooner and wrinkle earlier than those who are not. She said that if I was good and kind and patient, it would also show in my face; that I would age gracefully, and when I did get old, I would have laugh lines instead of deep furrows from frowning. I would have dismissed this as just a silly story to get young girls to be nice to each other, except that my aunt was in her seventies and looked years younger than all the other stage mothers on the set. The woman was clearly onto something.

  Photographic Insert

  Mom and Dad onstage in Canada in 1951. Yes, they were acting, but this scene could have been straight out of their real-life relationship.

  Backstage with Liberace in 1969. Nah, he doesn’t look gay at all….

  On the set of Throw Out the Anchor with Dina Merrill in 1972. I pay rapt attention as she explains how to be rich and fabulous.

  Auntie Marion and I emerge from my trailer. I had to be very careful to hold my drink away from the dress…or else.

  Katherine MacGregor and I relax between takes. (What am I reading? The Racing Form?!)

  Gladys nails on the dreaded wig in the hair and makeup “demilitarized zone.”

  By the riverside in Sonora, California, while filming “The Camp Out” episode. Melissa (wearing Michael Landon’s hat) and I were clearly up to no good…as usual!

  The dreaded wet suits. (Melissa and I hadn’t peed in them yet!)

  With my ever-ready henchman, Willie (Jonathan Gilbert), in front of the Mercantile.

  The evil Oleson ladies’ disastrous appearance at a school fair. This was shot moments before the crowd turned on us.

  Conning our way into a Hollywood party in 1974. I wore a $1,000 gown while my publicity-machine dad donned a $2 tux.

  What the hell are you doing here? Michael was shocked but happy to see me at the party.

  Never wrestle with Melissa Gilbert. She’ll put you in a headlock and make you eat dirt!

  My all-time favorite picture of Melissa and me: She has that expression on her face because I have just shoved an ice cube down the front of her shirt. (She did it to me first!) Photograph by John Wiltshire Photography

  Since my boobs were the biggest of the teenagers’ on Little House in 1977, I won Gladys’s gold lame swimsuit. Here I show off the goods as Melissa stands by, green with envy.

  BFFs celebrating my fifteenth birthday on the set at Paramount Studios.

  Ever the prankster, Michael helps me cut my cake.

  Palling around with “Percival.” Celebrating with Steve Tracey at the Little House Christmas party in 1980.

  With my mother and the late comedian John Deavon at a salute to Casper the Friendly Ghost (a.k.a. Mom) in Hollywood.

  You can take the girl out of the prairie, but you can’t take the prairie out of the girl. Post–Little House, I continued to be cast in period pieces, including the TV movie I Married Wyatt Earp with Marie Osmond.

  Trying to shed my innocent Little House image by playing a tramp on Fantasy Island in 1980. Yes, that’s Eve Plumb (a.k.a. Jan Brady) as my mom!

  Visiting the real Walnut Grove in 1992.

  J’adore the French…and they love me! A Nellie poster from 2009.

  Not the blushing bride type, I wore a tux to match my husband, Bob, when we wed on November 6, 1993.

  I thought there must be something Melissa Sue liked to do. I was excited when I saw that she had taken up backgammon and thought this might be my opportunity to finally break through her impenetrable shell. I didn’t know how to play at all, but I thought, Even better! Not only is it a game she likes, but she can show off how good she is by teaching me to play it. I marched up to her and expressed interest in the game. She looked bored. I said I didn’t know how to play and asked if it was difficult. She looked at me in utter disgust and said, “No, it figures you wouldn’t know how. You’ve always been a tad backwards.”

  I was surprised by such an open display of hostility. It had seemed an unspoken agreement that to keep peace on the set, all hatreds were to be expressed in a more covert, Victorian manner. Just coming right out and insulting people to their face seemed unusual, even for her. I decided to go with the possibility, however unlikely, that this was an attempt at humor. Who knows what this girl thou
ght was a joke? Maybe “backwards” was just her way of saying “dizzy” or “silly.” I laughed nervously. “A tad backwards? Oh, I like that! Yeah, I’d say I’m sort of ‘backwards’!”

  She wasn’t laughing. “No,” she continued coldly, “actually, I’d say you’re a lot backwards. In fact, you’re quite stupid.” Ah. So apparently she didn’t feel like teaching me to play backgammon. And as I didn’t feel like finding out what she was going to say next, I got the hell out of there.

  Everyone assumed Missy’s attitude had something to do with her mother, but we never knew for sure. I never even heard her raise her voice to Missy, but there just seemed to be something odd about their relationship. Some people weren’t subtle about saying so, like Katherine MacGregor, who was never subtle about anything. One morning in makeup, Katherine was explaining how after years of therapy, she had realized that she hated her mother. Her mother had been extremely cruel to her, it turns out, and she had tried to pretend for years that it didn’t bother her. She had felt great relief when she admitted she couldn’t stand the woman. Melissa Sue walked in right in the middle of this, just as Katherine was saying, “And that’s how I realized I hated my mother!”

  Missy was horrified. She actually spoke up: “You can’t do that. You can’t hate your mother.”