Arngrim played bratty Nellie Oleson, while Landon starred as the heroic Charles Ingalls on the ’70s TV series.

Little House on the Prairie ‘was therapy’ for Michael Landon, costar Alison Arngrim says

Arngrim played bratty Nellie Oleson, while Landon starred as the heroic Charles Ingalls on the ’70s TV series.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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June 26, 2026 3:52 p.m. ET

Michael Landon stars on 'Little House on the Prairie' in 1977. Credit:

NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

- *Little House on the Prairie* star Alison Arngrim says costar Michael Landon treated their hit show like therapy.

- In addition to his role as patriarch Charles Ingalls, Landon was a director, writer, and producer on the show.

- More than 50 years after the series premiered, Arngrim says Landon's strategy worked.

*Little House on the Prairie* star Alison Arngrim is recalling something sweet she noticed in costar Michael Landon.

Landon played Charles "Pa" Ingalls on the family series, which was based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's books about growing up in the late 1800s.

Arngrim portrayed the villainous Nellie Oleson, who was the nemesis of Charles' daughter Laura (Melissa Gilbert). Landon, Arngrim, and Gilbert were all part of the show from when it premiered in 1974.

"This show was so personal for him," Arngrim said Thursday on the *Little House On the Prairie 50th Anniversary Podcast*. "There's endless episodes and endless moments where Michael is like, as I said, it was it was therapy. He's finding a way to get paid to go to therapy. He was working out endless personal issues and childhood conflicts."

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Landon was not only a star of the series, which featured an ensemble cast that also included Karen Grassle, Melissa Sue Anderson, Katherine MacGregor, Richard Bull, Dean Butler, and many more, but also a director, writer, and producer. So it was easy for him to pick something out and turn it into an episode.

"He was just working [his issues] all out in front of all of America," Arngrim said. "And it was brilliant. And it worked."

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Charles was depicted as a strong (often shirtless), hard-working, and fair man, who was always up for sharing a life lesson or a laugh with his kids. When he saw wrong-doing he called it out, whatever the consequences. Pa did the right thing, and he expected the same of his offspring.

In December, Arngrim told *Woman's World* that Landon's "home life was not happy" and that "he had a miserable childhood." His parents were difficult, he told her, and he had sought "the kind of real family and real love and connection that the show exemplified."

Landon died of pancreatic cancer in 1991.

*Little House* had been such a hit that it ran for nine seasons through 1983, during which time it was awarded four Emmys. And it lives on in reruns.

Alison Arngrim in 2024 and as Nellie on 'Little House'.

A reboot of the family series, again inspired by the books that were originally published in the 1930s and ’40s, premieres on Netflix next month.

The new show promises to be "part hopeful family drama, part epic survival tale, and part origin story of the American West," while featuring a "kaleidoscopic view of the struggles and triumphs of those who shaped the frontier," Netflix has said in the official synopsis.

For her part, Gilbert has given her approval of the much-awaited project.

"I think there's room in the *Little House *universe for all different kinds of stories to be told," she explained to ** in 2025, "just like there was always room in the *Little Women* universe to keep retelling that story."

Watch the full conversation with Alison Arngrim above.

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