Melissa Gilbert Gets Super Honest About ‘Little House on the Prairie’ 50 Years Later
Her role as Laura Ingalls Wilder will always be iconic.
Can you believe it’s been 50 years since Little House on the Prairie first premiered on television? Melissa Gilbert sure can’t, and she’s opening up about something she never thought she’d experience.
Melissa, who portrayed Laura Ingalls Wilder on the hit NBC series based on the book series of the same name, had some thoughts about the legacy of Little House on the Prairie when she appeared on the October 30 taping of The Kelly Clarkson Show. When host Kelly Clarkson praised her for being a part of the show that ran between 1974 to 1983, Melissa decided to share one special moment she’s gained from the years of viewers loving the series.
“I watch [Little House on the Prairie] now with a couple of my granddaughters,” she revealed in a clip posted on Instagram. “They have started watching, and it’s just amazing. And it kills my mom too when she comes in and sees that we’re all watching … [it’s] multigenerational. Yeah, she just starts sobbing.”
But that’s not the only thing Melissa had to say about Little House on the Prairie’s long-term legacy on TV.
When Kelly followed up and asked Melissa why she thought the show still resonates so many years later, she explained how the stories the series told are still relevant, no matter what timeframe they’re set in.
“A lot of people will say it’s because the stories are about, you know, community and family and love and acceptance and all the good things in life that we all crave,” she added. “But we were also telling the stories of America in 1974 through the lens of 1874. We were telling stories of veterans coming home from Vietnam, but it was the Civil War … We were telling the stories of racism, anti-Semitism, chauvinism and all of the things that we were fighting. And we’re still telling the same stories and trying to learn the same lessons.”
Even though Little House on the Prairie hasn’t aired a new episode in quite some time, Melissa’s comments are the perfect segue as her career takes her back in time to another era. This time, she’ll be starring in the historical drama When Calls the Heart season 12, and she’ll be playing Georgie McGill, a woman who Deadline says “shares a surprising past with one special Hope Valley resident.”
