Melissa Gilbert Biography

Born 05/08/1964

This sensitive, delicately pretty leading actor, mostly on TV, came to fame as a girl playing Laura Ingalls on the NBC period drama series, "Little House on the Prairie" (1974-82), based on the stories by the adult Ingalls. Gilbert has made few feature film appearances, but kept busy on the small screen, for a time recreating famous suffering teenager film roles in TV-movies like "The Miracle Worker" (1979), "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1980) and "Splendor in the Grass" (1981). She remained very prolific and gradually managed the transition to adult roles in TV-movies including "Choices" (1986), "Forbidden Nights" (1990) and "A Family of Strangers" (1993). Gilbert also occasionally tried TV series again, but "Little House: A New Beginning" (1982-83), "Stand By Your Man" (1992) and "Sweet Justice" (1994) didn't catch on. In 1995, she married actor Bruce Boxleitner.