Confessions of a Prairie Bitch

by Alison Arngrim

  To say that our comments fell on deaf ears, however, would be an understatement. Senator Battin had been right. Talk about a tough room! The panel of senators staring down at me from their dais exhibited a cross section of emotions ranging from dismissive contempt to smoldering rage. Unbeknownst to me, I was testifying not just before some of the most powerful senators in California, but some of the very politicians who had helped sign the incest exception into law in the first place.

  When we were finished, the senators seemed to take almost gleeful pleasure in voting no on our bill. The incest exception would stand.

  I didn’t cry like those politicians expected me to. I was from Hollywood; I knew what to do. I called my publicist! Not just any publicist. Harlan Boll is the world’s only gay Quaker publicist. He had a long-standing relationship with the producers at Larry King’s show, having booked many celebrities for interviews, and called them immediately. “Now, I’m not saying I have this, but I’m saying if I were to tell you I had a celebrity, a woman who had starred as a child on a greatly beloved family television show—which shall remain nameless—who is now willing to come forward about having been sexually abused, would you be interested?”

  “Which television show?” they asked.

  “Little House on the Prairie,” he volunteered.

  They were extremely interested. He explained that the interview wouldn’t just be about my own molestation, it would also be about the law, the shocking legal travesty that was the incest exception. He said this victim was now speaking out for millions of others. Then he told them the “theoretical” guest was me.

  The producers had just one question. Not about the victim, about the perp.

  “Was it Michael Landon?” they asked.

  “Acckkk! God, no! Are you crazy? It was a relative!” replied Harlan in horror.

  “Oh. We’ll get back to you….”

  To their credit, they did. But they wanted to know everything. I was told that I needed to have breakfast with one of the producers before they booked me, so they could see that I could explain myself—and the law—in a clear, meaningful way.

  And so I did. I met one of the producers the next day at a restaurant near my home in Los Angeles and told her everything. She quickly lost interest in her food. By the time I was done explaining the incest exception and the workings of Sacramento, she stopped me. She got out her cell phone and explained that she would be calling the office, and I would definitely be doing the show.

  I told her this wasn’t just about me, and, frankly, I didn’t really want to be by myself for this one. “I have other people who can come on the show, like lawyers and psychologists. Senator Battin himself has agreed to appear,” I offered.

  She smiled at me. “Uh-huh. And what show were they on?” She explained that my intentions were all well and good, but that “people don’t know them. They know you.”

  There was no escaping my Little House legend, and I had long ago decided I would not let it be a curse. But now Nellie was something else. She was a weapon I could fight this battle with, a sharp-tongued sword.

  The producers still had many issues to work out, and I endured one conference call that was a bit surreal. Harlan and I were both on the line with another producer, and the issue of what “details” I would or would not be sharing came up. The conversation turned, well, graphic. Harlan was, as always, protective of me, and I finally had to stop for a moment and ask for clarification. “Excuse me,” I politely asked. “I just want to be clear about this. Are we ‘bartering’ for the details of my rape?”

  Following a brief, uncomfortable silence, the producer gave me an honest answer: “Yes. Yes, that is technically what we’re doing here.”

  “Thank you. I just wanted to be clear,” I replied. Oddly, this exchange made me feel better, not worse. If I was going to make a deal, I needed to know what the actual terms were. I now understood what they wanted. And so I explained what I wanted. I wanted to talk about the law, specifically the hideous reality of the incest exception and Sacramento’s vehement defense of it. I wanted to talk about PROTECT and the fact that this was the only organization fighting this. My wishes were all granted. The producer even agreed to show footage from my testimony at the hearing in Sacramento (along with the required Little House clips, of course).

  Now came the fun part: telling my father. I technically had to, because before the show could tape, the legal department required that I have a person who could “corroborate” my story. I said that my father would. I almost wanted to tell them to call my brother. He’d certainly acknowledged what he’d done to enough people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d have corroborated it himself.

  I called my father, explained my involvement with PROTECT, and what had happened in Sacramento. He thought this all sounded great and was surprisingly quite enthusiastic about it

  And then I broke the news: “I’m going on Larry King Live.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Larry King? Did you just say Larry King?”

  “Yup,” I confirmed.

  He went crazy. He sounded like he’d just won the lottery. “Larry King!” he cried with joy. “Larry King!”

  “Um, I’m going on to talk about my abuse,” I tried to remind him.

  “Yes, yes, of course. This is fantastic! Larry fucking King! How long are you on for?” he asked breathlessly.

  “Um, for the hour.”

  “FOR THE HOUR?” he shrieked. “Oh my God! Who are the other guests?”

  “Well, nobody. It’s just me.”

  He completely lost it at that point. “Just you? You’re on LARRY FUCKING KING FOR THE ENTIRE HOUR, AND IT’S JUST YOU?”

  He was ecstatic. He began to babble, “Oh my God, this is fantastic. I have to call everyone and tell them to watch it—”

  I interrupted. “Look, Dad, I’m glad you’re so happy about this, but you do understand that I’m going on the show to talk about being repeatedly raped as a child under your roof, okay?” This announcement did not seem to rain on his parade in the slightest.

  “Oh, yes, of course, that’s very serious.” He pretended to calm down. “And, yes, of course, you have to do that. I always figured you would someday. It’s for the best.”

  He was being far more supportive than I ever could have anticipated. But then he couldn’t contain himself any longer

  “But,” he began again, “it’s LARRY FUCKING KING! Oh my God! I’ll invite everyone over.” He began to think out loud. “Oh, God…do I have time to cook? No, wait, I’ll call a caterer.”

  Yeah, sure, it was very bad that I got raped, and yes, of course, the legal injustice being visited on millions in the form of the incest exception needed to be stopped at once, but the important thing to remember was: I was going to be on TV! And in my family’s universe, that was what really mattered. So he had no problem at all speaking to the producers at Larry King or corroborating my story or anything else.

  I wasn’t sure how to take this. On the one hand, it felt good to hear him be so supportive of what I was doing. Did he now truly understand what I’d been through? Is this what it took to get through to him? CNN? I sighed. No, this was not going to be an emotional breakthrough. This was just his favorite thing in the world. Publicity. He hadn’t changed a bit.

  After all these years, I understood how my father’s brain worked, but it was a little hard to explain to Harlan and the gang at PROTECT, let alone other abuse survivors. “What sort of response did you get from your father?”

  “Well, I think he’s still somewhat torn.”

  “Oh?”

  “Between the crab puffs and the spinach dip.”

  So I appeared on Larry King Live on April 27, 2004. Before the taping, Larry came into the green room and explained to me, “Look, I know we have questions we already agreed I wouldn’t ask you. But I’m going to ask a couple of them. Do not answer them. I don’t want you to answer them. You can say, ‘I don’t want to talk about that’” or ‘None of your busi
ness’” or whatever you want. I’m not asking them to make you answer or upset you. It’s just here, basically, I’m the audience. They’re all thinking these questions. If I don’t ask, they’ll wonder why. But that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to answer me, okay?”

  I was definitely going to be okay. Before I knew it, there I was sitting in front of the famous CNN “Light Brite” set with all the blue dots. And there was Larry King, sitting right across from me. On TV, the desk looks bigger than it really is. When you do the show, he is right there in your face. And like many celebrities, he has a really big head. Huge, out of proportion to the rest of him. It’s one thing on TV, but in person it has the startling effect of making one feel that one is being interviewed by a giant praying mantis. I couldn’t stop staring at his head.

  There I was, trying to deal with talking for the first time in public about having been sexually abused at age six, trying to remember all the important things about the law and the bill and all I could think was, Wow, he’s really got a big head. Perhaps it took my mind off the scary stuff and made me calmer. At any rate, I managed to spit it all out.

  LARRY KING: Why talk about this now?

  ME: I have avoided talking about this for years. I’ve seen a lot of celebrities go on television shows and come out about this kind of thing, and I’ve always sort of cringed and said “Oh, I just don’t ever want to do that.” But I’ve always said if I had to, if there was some compelling reason—in this case, I’m now on the advisory board of an organization called PROTECT, and we have a bill that we introduced in Sacramento….

  Then, after the first segment, Larry King turned to the camera and said “That’s www dot PROTECT dot ORG!” I almost swooned. He kept it up, too, stopping at nearly every break to shout, “PROTECT dot org!”

  When we finished taping, Larry asked someone (apparently in the ceiling) when this was going to air. A mysterious disembodied voice said it was “evergreen,” that they could show it whenever they wanted. I started to panic. This had to get out now so it could help us with Sacramento. If they held it, we would be screwed. I felt a lump in my throat.

  Then Larry turned to the voice in the ceiling and said, “Run it Thursday!” I could have kissed him.

  People logged on to the PROTECT Web site from all over the world. And what did they see when they got there? All the senators from the Public Safety Committee who had said no to our bill to overturn the incest exception. Not just their names, but photos, with banners across them reading “BETRAYED.” And below that were their phone numbers, fax numbers, and e-mail addresses.

  The politicians were quickly inundated with faxes, e-mails, and phone calls from voters yelling at them, “What the hell is wrong with you! Are you sick?” The popular onslaught had the desired effect. Senator Battin reintroduced the bill in California. If nobody in Sacramento gave a shit that I was molested before, thanks to Larry King, they certainly did now. The bill began to pass, one committee, then another, first the Senate, then the Assembly, and finally to the floor. And when it went to a floor vote, the politicians did what they always do. They passed it unanimously. On October 4, 2005, the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed it into law. I was happy. Really, really happy.

  And then I cried. I only really cry when I’m happy; I’m kind of nuts that way. I had fought city hall—no, the entire California state legislature—and won. I had helped to change an unjust law that had been on the books for decades and had hurt thousands of children. I had succeeded, not because I was a politician or a lawyer or a psychiatrist, not even because I had been a victim and spoken out. I didn’t have the education or experience some of the others who fought alongside me did. But I succeeded because I had something going for me that the others simply didn’t. I was someone people knew, someone who had been in their living rooms. Even better: I succeeded because I was Nellie—and that bitch sure could open up doors.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HAPPY EVER AFTER

  THE REAL THINGS HAVEN’T CHANGED. IT IS STILL BEST TO BE HONEST AND TRUTHFUL; TO MAKE THE MOST OF WHAT WE HAVE; TO BE HAPPY WITH SIMPLE PLEASURES; AND TO HAVE COURAGE WHEN THINGS GO WRONG.

  —LAURA INGALLS WILDER

  On New Year’s Day, 2010, I went to see Melissa Gilbert say “I do” again. Not to a new guy—thank God! She and longtime hubby, Bruce Boxleitner, were renewing their vows on their fifteenth wedding anniversary. For the record, Bruce is the only guy Melissa’s ever dated that I could stand, and I think I can safely say she’s given up dating idiots for life.

  It was a small ceremony, at the Little Brown Church in the Valley, followed by a reception at Dupar’s coffee shop, where we all got eggs and hash browns. Melissa table-hopped around the pie counter, in her high heels and lovely multicolored, tulle wedding gown, a strapless number that showed off the enormous heart-shaped “Bruce and Melissa” tattoo on her shoulder. For a girl who was so hoity-toity as a child, she’s so down to earth now, I swear she’s practically gone trailer. And I love her as much today as I did back then.

  Yes, I still love my Little House family. Of course, we lost Kevin Hagen (Doc Baker) and Dabbs Greer (Reverend Alden) in the last couple of years, and Victor French (Mr. Edwards) some years back. They’ve all gone off to join Michael and Steve. But the rest of our gang is still going strong and, amazingly, still speaking to each other. Well, most of us. I admit, Melissa Sue Anderson and I haven’t exactly been hanging out together at the beauty parlor getting our nails done, but sometimes I think maybe we should. Now that I’m older, I have a sneaking suspicion we probably have a whole lot more in common than either of us used to think. I’ve always said, if she wants to be friends, I’ll buy the first pitcher of margaritas.

  And where are the Olesons? Nobody ever really knows exactly where Willie is. Jonathan Gilbert took off and started roaming the world a couple years back, and he’s been just about impossible to keep track of since. It’s like a bizarre game of Where’s Waldo? But I heard from him a while back, and he’s still smart as a whip and enjoying driving us all crazy.

  My “dad,” Richard Bull (Mr. Oleson), lives in Chicago and still acts. And Mrs. Oleson? Come on, you know women like that never die. Indeed, Katherine MacGregor will be celebrating her eighty-fifth birthday this year. My guess is she’ll outlive us all. She hasn’t changed a bit, I mean, not at all. She will always be my mother, and I am convinced she will continue to try to boss me around to her very last breath. But how can you not love someone like that?

  The Baby Carrie twins are now old enough that I can finally tell them apart. (They talk just fine now, too!) Rachel lives not far from me in Los Angeles, and I see her often. Karen Grassle (Ma) and Charlotte Stewart (Miss Beadle) moved up north near Napa, so I have to be satisfied with e-mail most of the time, but we all try to get together at least once a year for cast reunions.

  I think I’m going to need my Little Home family more than ever as the years go by, particularly given that I’ve now lost all of my real family. It wasn’t until almost a year after my mother died, in June 2002, that my father and I were able to spread her ashes in the Strait of Juan de Fuca like she wanted. But she’s there now, with the killer whales and dolphins leaping around all day. In the spring of 2008, good old Jess Petersen, the caustic, chain-smoking other half of my dad’s company, Arngrim and Petersen, the man who had somehow become my “third parent,” finally succumbed to those damn Salem cigarettes he wouldn’t give up and died. He had taken care of me when my parents weren’t available and often did a better job of it. As my manager, he was involved in setting up my trust fund, a precarious position of great responsibility. He watched that money like a hawk and complained to the bank when the account failed to produce sufficient interest. Who ever heard of a guy breaking into a child actor’s bank account to put more money in it? Jess loved to travel and used to tell me that one day he would take me to his favorite place on earth, Venice. Ultimately, it was I who wound up taking him. It was hard getting his ashes into the country at first
, but I finally got him a nice spot at the cemetery on the Island of San Michele. It’s got a beautiful view of the Grand Canal.

  But this last loss was the toughest. On December 16, 2009, the world’s craziest, most shamelessly publicity-loving stage father, the guy who clawed his way up from the Salvation Army orphanage all the way to Broadway and, eventually, Hollywood, took his final bow. My dad was eighty-one when he died. He had bravely battled Parkinson’s disease and a severe heart condition for many years, firing up the electric wheelchair to go for oysters and martinis at five o’clock on weekdays and brunch on Sunday. After my mother died, he lived alone but entertained regularly. He attended all possible theater openings and political and charity events. Some people who met him were unaware that he was even ill. But eventually the disease did what it always does and began to attack his ability to speak, to swallow, and, ultimately, to breathe.

  What made it hard for me wasn’t just losing my last parent. It was that he’s also the person I most resemble—in all too many ways. They say all girls turn into their mothers. No such luck in my case. Friends of his used to laugh and call me “Thor in Drag.” The physical similarity was alarming. When my husband, Bob, asked me if there were personal items of my father’s that I wanted to keep to remind me of him, I said, “It’s okay, I have a mirror.”

  Dad and I were alike in more than looks. Having been in the orphanage during the Great Depression, and having suffered not just abandonment, but also malnutrition and neglect, my father had developed a survivor’s mentality. He used to say that the thing about being an orphan is, “even if you get adopted, even if you have a family, you always know in the back of your brain: you’re on your own.” Whenever he said this, I always knew exactly what he meant.