Little House in the Hollywood Hills

by Charlotte Stewart

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  Little House in the Hollywood Hills: A Bad Girl’s Guide to Becoming Miss Beadle, Mary X, and Me

  © 2016 Charlotte Stewart and Andy Demsky. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This version of the book may be slightly abridged from the print version.

  Published in the USA by:

  BearManor Media

  PO Box 71426

  Albany, Georgia 31708

  www.bearmanormedia.com

  ISBN 978-1-59393-906-9

  Edited by Annette Lloyd.

  Cover photos: Used by permission of Friendly Family Productions, LLC (top), Courtesy Jeanne Field (bottom).

  Cover Design by Michael Kavish, Kavish + Kavish.

  eBook construction by Brian Pearce | Red Jacket Press.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction: Beadle Mania

  Chapter 1: Smoking on the Jungle Ride

  Chapter 2: Damaged Goods

  Chapter 3: Tim and Elvis

  Chapter 4: Meltdown

  Chapter 5: The Liquid Butterfly

  Chapter 6: Sex, Death, and the Rolling Stones

  Chapter 7: Henry and Mary X, Part 1

  Chapter 8: Becoming Miss Beadle

  Chapter 9: Any Port in a Storm

  Chapter 10: Henry and Mary X, Part 2

  Chapter 11: New Beginnings

  Chapter 12: Henry and Mary X, Part 3

  Chapter 13: Alone But Not Alone

  Chapter 14: Two Surgeries and One Kiss

  Chapter 15: Life Goes On

  Chapter 16: Saving Mr. Banks

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  For Mom and Honey

  Introduction: Beadle Mania

  It’s the summer of 2014 and I’m on a getaway in sunny France, my first visit to Toulon, a serene, ancient seaside town where outdoor cafes and little shops line crooked, medieval streets. Here you find the kind of blue-sky, boats-bobbing harbor scene where you might picture Ernest Hemingway wiling away a few hours over martinis with a dark-haired mistress.

  As afternoon turns into evening a beefy middle-aged guy takes notice of me, a flash of recognition in his eye. He approaches and without warning pulls me into a crushing bear hug. Then he begins to sob. Huge, whole-body sobs.

  He’s not hurting me, other than making it a little hard to breathe, and he doesn’t seem intent on anything other than producing convulsive, big-man, French tears.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a woman, presumably his wife, beginning to cry too and two teenage girls (daughters?) are standing nearby looking somewhat embarrassed yet surprisingly empathetic.

  Finally this big guy is able to get enough breath to say in his very heavily accented voice, “You were such a…big part…of my childhood.”

  So why have I found myself on the coast of France bringing a guy the size of a polar bear to near emotional collapse?

  It’s about a television series I was part of 40 years ago — a show about hard work, friendship, loyalty, and family, that touched the hearts of millions of viewers (and still does) each week, moved by the timeless power of community, forgiveness, and love.

  Like other fans, he likely associates me with things that are authentic, traditional, simple, and good. And what a thrill to be part of that. Hollywood is bursting with actors and there are many, many others who could have been cast in the role that became mine. I feel so fortunate to know that so many people — something like three generations now — have looked to that show for some glimpse of humanity and goodness, for an idea of who parents, teachers, and mentors can be.

  When I talk to fans, pose for pictures, exchange emails and, yes, receive bear hugs, I have a sense for who they’d like me to be and I try my best not to disappoint. But it doesn’t always feel honest. It’s something I’ve wrestled with. And on that very day in Toulon I’d been giving serious thought to writing a memoir — this book — that for the first time talks candidly about how I only barely survived a lot of my own mistakes, mental and moral lapses, and stupidity, and how extremely fortunate I am to have lived past the age of 40 much less to reach the age I am today.

  The show I’m talking about dates to 1974. And it came to me as a gift after I’d appeared in dozens of guest roles on prime time programs such as Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, The Waltons, Mannix, My Three Sons, and as many commercials as there are stars in the sky.

  My agent called one day and told me about a project Michael Landon had gotten the green light on called Little House on the Prairie. Would I be interested in reading for the part of a 19th century schoolmarm?

  Well, this raised two questions. First, what the hell is a marm? I’d always wondered. It sounded like a combination of harm and mime. Second — and it was less a question and more a concern — I knew very little about the book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. So while I was no expert, nothing about a nice family in Minnesota in the 1870s exactly shouted “hit TV series.”

  In 1974 America was in the middle of a huge cultural changing-of-the-guard that saw the era of My Three Sons and Petticoat Junction being replaced by hippies, Black Panthers, the Vietnam War (which was winding down), school busing, Old Hollywood being replaced by New Hollywood, and sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. The world was moving in a new direction. Was there still a market for rugged, frontier stories? Yes, there was still Gunsmoke on Mondays at 8 pm, like a force of nature, hanging in there for its 20th season. The only other thing like Little House was The Waltons, in which I’d already filmed an appearance in the pilot episode, but no one yet knew where that one was going.

  The top shows at the time were edgy and contemporary — All in the Family, Sanford and Son, and Maude. They were challenging audiences while entertaining them and were driving the network censors to their whiskey cabinets.

  Any doubts I had though were offset (mostly) by Michael Landon, whom I was acquainted with from a couple of appearances on Bonanza. I knew him more from his work than I did personally but was well aware that he was an unusually talented guy, who could write, act, produce, direct — and — look great on a horse. Serious skills.

  The other name attached to this endeavor was producer Ed Friendly, who had created the iconic Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a rapid-fire sex and politics comedy show that absolutely nailed the sensibility of the time, which had launched the careers of Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn, among others. Everyone wanted to be on Laugh-In, saints and sinners alike, including John Wayne, Billy Graham, Gore Vidal, Oral Roberts, Hugh Hefner, Ringo Starr and even Richard Nixon. How you went from Sock-It-To-Me to Walnut Grove, I wasn’t sure, but Ed apparently had a plan.

  I walked into Michael’s and Ed’s production office at Paramount Studios wearing my usual around-town outfit — bell-bottom jeans and a light, floaty top with my blonde hair long and loose. I probably looked more like I was trying out for a part on The Partridge Family.

  In an earlier phase of my career I probably would have found a dress from the period and neatly pinned my hair up, so the producers could picture me in the part. I was confident, probably too confident, but I had a resume that stretched back to the early black-and-white days of television, when I appeared on shows such as The Loretta Young Show and Bachelor Father. I’d done drama and comedy, played teenage ditzes, saloon girls, prostitutes, girly-girls, and yes, teachers, and all sorts of
other character types.

  In the audition I chatted with Michael and Ed and the other producers in the room. They told me a little about the show and talked about the part of the prairie schoolteacher. As I read the script pages, I realized pretty quickly the kind of persona that was required. I asked Michael if we could trade places — if I could sit behind his desk and he could move around to the front where I was. He seemed surprised by this request but was totally game. Once behind his desk I now had all the power and arranged Michael and everyone else in the room into rows as I would with a room full of schoolchildren. At this point Michael was giggling (just like you’ve seen him do on the show) and there was a lot of goofing among the others and I berated them like the brats they were being, commanding them to behave and listen to their teacher.

  When the audition wrapped up, I was unsure how it had gone. We’d had a lot of fun and the tone in the room was friendly but I’d been around long enough not to take that to mean anything in particular.

  I drove the hour to my house in Topanga Canyon and by the time I got to my kitchen and poured myself a post-audition drink, I was stunned to get a call from my agent saying that they had officially offered me the part. Whoa. These guys didn’t mess around. I would discover that Mike Landon kept everything and everyone around him moving at an explosive pace.

  The one thing that distinguished this part from all others, I learned, is that it came with a four-year contract.

  The life of an actor is basically uncertainty gaffer-taped to chaos, and most of the time we welcome the roller-coaster-ness of it all. But every now and then a dose of financial stability is just the thing. I was 32 and newly single — no one was paying my bills but me. Steady paychecks start to sound pretty cool in such circumstances. Besides, I thought I looked kind of hot in a prairie dress.

  I happily signed on to play patient, considerate, and stable Miss Beadle and began to think through the idea of spending the next four years in a make-believe version of Walnut Grove, Minnesota circa 1870s. Damn, if all went as planned I’d be doing this role until 1978 — that sounded so far away.

  I did wonder how it would go working with all those child actors. Unlike the other adults in the cast, I would be interacting almost exclusively with the cast members who were under five-feet-tall. And in the case of Melissa Gilbert well under, making the nickname “Half Pint” especially apt.

  I liked kids though I’d never spent much time with them, professionally or otherwise, beyond visits with my sister’s wonderful brood of seven, whom I absolutely adored. But working day to day with child actors is much different than spending Christmas with nieces and nephews you love. There’s a reason there is an old adage in Hollywood that if at all possible avoid playing opposite children or animals. Kids have a reputation for being scene-stealers and their parents, always lurking just off camera, tend to be a pain. I’d just have to work hard and hope for the best.

  One thing I already loved about the role, before even taking my first step onto a sound stage, was that as part of this ensemble cast, I would not be appearing in every episode and would have time to do other things I enjoyed such as playing around with my hippie clothing store on Santa Monica Boulevard called The Liquid Butterfly. This is where I made and sold tie-dye dresses, cowboy shirts, and even costumes for TV and film productions. It was also a great place to hang out with friends in the music business such as Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Neil Young, and my drinking buddy Jim Morrison of The Doors, along with actors, artists and weirdoes of every stripe.

  Besides that, I also had a little time to play other roles. In fact I’d recently been shooting (at night) the most intriguing, surreal film I’d ever been involved in written and directed by a student filmmaker named David Lynch, who could be pretty surreal all on his own. The film had the unlikely name of Eraserhead and I had agreed to play the role of Mary X opposite a wild Texas genius by the name of Jack Nance. We were to have one of the most hideous and disturbing babies in film history.

  From the start of Little House, I threw myself into the role (and blonde wig) of Miss Eva Beadle, though in the days before YouTube or even VCRs, I didn’t give any thought to it having any more longevity than last month’s issue of People magazine. Today Little House on the Prairie is widely considered a blockbuster, a television icon, but at the time, I don’t think those of us in the cast had any idea of the impact it was making out in the wider world.

  We shot at the same studio as Happy Days, the Ron Howard and Henry Winkler sitcom that was massively popular and was indeed having a big impact — I’m pretty sure they sold more lunch boxes and t-shirts than we did. Little House, by contrast, was a stable though not quite razzle-dazzle performer in the television world (neither Ringo Starr nor Hugh Hefner was vying to make an appearance), at least in terms of ratings or awards; the first season it ended in 13th place, behind shows such as Chico and The Man, Maude and Rhoda.

  We were all very happy for Michael and later Melissa Gilbert when they were eventually nominated for Golden Globes but no one working in front of the camera ever walked off with a statuette. The show won four Emmys, two each for musical composition and cinematography in various years. (Tellingly, we were rather popular with The People’s Choice Awards.) But in the fishbowl of the L.A. entertainment community, our show was considered pretty beige and benign stuff. We were corny. We were as sincere as a county fair quilt. The people who ran Hollywood weren’t interested.

  Cut to 40 years later. Unlike nearly all of those shows that were beating us in the ratings and the awards tally, Little House has never been out of syndication. It is still seen in more than 100 countries around the world and, as you read this, is on television somewhere in the U.S. or abroad, in countries like Spain where it’s called La Casa de la Pradera or in France where it goes by the lovely name La Petite Maison dans la Prairie and has an unbelievably huge following. Thus, explaining the mystery of my French bear-hugger in Toulon — this was a French fan expressing his deep feelings about the show and its connection to the very foundations of his life. (He was a very sweet guy!)

  The enduring popularity of the show really hit home with me in July 2014 in the actual Walnut Grove, Minnesota, where thousands of fans showed up for the show’s 40th anniversary.

  I was there with 11 other actors from the series and for two days remained astounded by the intense fandom and love of the people who were there from all over the country. Many stood in line for hours — in the rain — to get an autograph or a photo with a favorite cast member. These were grown people who were too nervous to speak when they met us, whose hands where too shaky to hold their own cameras for a selfie.

  Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined in the 1970s — in the waning days of the Nixon administration, when many families still had black and white TVs — that in the year 2014, I would be attending Little House on the Prairie conventions across the U.S. and Europe every year, meeting thousands of fans of this TV show about simple, homespun values such as friendship, patience, and love.

  Like many characters on the show, Miss Beadle lived simply and worked hard.

  Eventually she fell in love with a sturdy, slightly poetic frontier gentleman, a pig farmer, and she moved away from Walnut Grove to help him follow his ambitions. While not the star of the ensemble, Miss Beadle has made her mark and certainly found her way into the hearts of millions of viewers around the world.

  I get a lot of weird and wonderful questions about playing the part such as which is my favorite episode? (“Troublemaker,” in which Miss Beadle gets fired.) What was it like to work with Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson? (Fantastic — I adore Alison. She is a total brat!) What was it like to work with Michael Landon? (He was hard working, whip-smart, talented, drank throughout the day, never wore underwear, liked to play jokes on people and was always, definitely, in charge.) I’ve even been asked if I slept with Michael. The assumption being, I guess, that in Hollywood everyone sleeps with everyone else. And the answer is, I did not
sleep with him; though the invitation was once made, I pretended not to notice. Or hear, or whatever. I probably handled it badly. Point is, while I was not always as picky as I should have been about whom I slept with, as you’ll see, in this case, having a quickie with the boss just seemed like a bad idea.

  What lots of fans ask is how much my life mirrors that of the gracious, solid Miss Beadle. And I suppose the answer is that my life has been a great deal like hers, well, except for that time I starred in a movie about venereal disease…demonstrated my amazing talent for putting my foot in my mouth such as when I tried to bum some weed off Henry Fonda — the wrong Fonda as it turned out…enjoyed a made-in-Hollywood love life that included a lot of flings and two marriages and divorces…worked with artists like Gene Kelly, Elvis Presley, Rock Hudson, Peter Falk, Kyle MacLachlan, and Kevin Bacon…drank too much, got cancer, survived the death of a spouse…oh, and was cast as the first walk-around Alice in Wonderland at Disneyland.

  Hmmm. Okay…so maybe I wasn’t always much like Miss Beadle on the outside; but I do love her and find a great deal in her to admire (I’ll tell you later who I based her on). And I hope that over the course of this book you’ll see that somewhere inside of me were — and are, I think — some of those qualities that you saw on screen.

  When my contract was up on Little House in 1977, I had money. More money than I’d ever known. I had a gorgeous house in the Hollywood Hills. I bought an apartment building, made lots of other investments, had a business manager to handle my finances and pay my bills, and for the first time I felt like I really didn’t need to work. I stopped going to auditions and let cocaine and alcohol do their magic.

  By 1984 thanks to addiction I’d lost everything, absolutely everything, including my house. I’d cut off contact with most of my friends and my family. I had to beg Jack Nance, from Eraserhead, to let me live with him in a building I had once owned and was among the many things I’d lost.