Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert is quitting Hollywood. The actress, who famously played Laura Ingalls Wilder in the beloved historical drama, has traded in her glamorous lifestyle for a ramshackle cottage in the mountains.

She and her husband, Timothy Busfield, recently purchased a $98,000 14-acre property in the Cat Skill mountains in upstate New York – only 20 minutes away from the famed Woodstock location – so that she can enjoy a much more relaxed lifestyle and escape the pressures of being in the public eye.

Gilbert famously starred in the 1974 Western show when she was just a child – but how did she go from a dazzling Hollywood starlet to a sequestered woman living in the secluded mountains? 

In honor of her making the move, FEMAIL has decided to take a look back at everything she – and the rest of her Little House castmates – have done since the show ended nearly 40 years ago, and it turns out, some of them did not have the easiest journey.

From tax evasion to struggles with addiction, the Little House on the Prairie cast has certainly had their fair share of controversies.

The show, which went on for nine seasons before in concluded in 1983, followed a family who lived on a farm in Minnesota in the 1870s, ’80s, and ’90s. 

Created by Michael Landon, it was based off Laura Ingall Wilder’s best-selling novel of the same name. It starred Landon, Gilbert, Karen Grassle, and Melissa Sue Anderson – among others. 

Though the series dealt with some very serious subjects including alcoholism, poverty, racism, cancer, and even rape, it was considered wholesome family viewing, and it quickly became a fan favorite. It was ranked the third top show in 1974 and was watched by millions of households across the globe.

But what has the cast been up to since it went off the air almost four decades ago? Here’s what the Little House on the Prairie cast is doing now.

Charles Ingalls played by Michael Landon 

Landon was born on July 1, 1991, in Queens, New York. He didn’t have the easiest childhood, after witnessing his mother attempted suicide in front of him.

He was a skilled javelin thrower as a kid, which earned him an athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California. While attending the school, however, he tore his shoulder ligament, which ended his budding sports career. 

While working at a gas station located across from Warner Bros. studios, agent Bob Raison eventually noticed him and helped launch his career.

His early roles include I was a Teenage Werewolf in 1957, crime drama High School Confidential, comedy drama God’s Little Acre, and Bonanza – where he played Little Joe Cartwright.

After his success as Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, he produced the western drama series Father Murphy. He then went on to star in Highway to Heaven from 1984 to 1989.

His other credits include NBC’s Love is Forever, coming-of-age movie Sam’s Son, PBS series The Electric Company, and Where Do Pigeons Go To Die. He also appeared on the game show Match Game. 

On top of his work as an actor, director, and producer, Landon also launched a major singing career. His first single, Gimme a Little Kiss (Will ‘Ya’ Huh)/Be Patient With Me, dropped in 1957 and was a huge success.

He released a few other songs over the years, and embarked on a few world tours throughout his career.

He was married three times and is the father to nine children. He and his first wife, Dodie Levy-Fraser wed in 1956 and divorced in 1962. They adopted two sons, named Mark and Josh.

He then wed Marjorie Lynn Noe in 1963, and together they welcomed four children – two daughters named Leslie and Shawna, and two sons named Michael Jr. and Christopher. He also adopted Noe’s daughter from her first marriage, Cheryl, however, they split in 1982.

After that, he tied the knot with Little House on the Prairie makeup artist Cindy Clerico in 1983. Their relationship caused media backlash since it started while he was still married to Noe.

They had a daughter, named Jennifer, and a son, named Sean, and were together until his death. 

In 1991, the actor complained of severe headaches while on a ski vacation in Utah. He was then diagnosed with pancreatic cancer days later. He died on July 1, 1991, at age 54. 

Decades after his death however, Landon’s name was dragged into controversy when his on-screen wife, played by Karen Grassle, accused him of bullying her on-set. 

In her recent memoir, Grassle recalls the ‘disgusting’ jokes Landon would tell on set, how he’d mock the way she looked, and that he ‘insulted’ her by insisting she shouldn’t be paid more than the child actors on the show, which began airing in 1974. 

The actress described him as an ‘amazing, multi-talented person’ — with a controlling streak.

‘He was very highly strung, but he was carrying the weight of the show on his shoulders,’ she said.

But she doesn’t seem to think that was any excuse for some of his behavior.

The relationship appears to have grown rocky after Grassle, who was paid $2,000 to $4,000 week at the height of her fame, asked for a raise for the second season.

Landon said no, reportedly insisting she should be making as much as the child actors — and insisting she wasn’t as popular as she believed she was.

‘I felt insulted as his co-star on a hit series,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to gouge anybody, but I expected a fair wage.’

After that, she said, he began cutting her scenes and leaving her out of storylines altogether.

He could also be cruel, mocking her body and facial expressions to crew members — but Grassle didn’t feel she could call him out.

‘It was almost like I was frozen,’ she said. ‘But, as a woman in the 1970s film industry, I was so accustomed to these putdowns, it never occurred to me to sharply rebuke him. I kept up the professionalism. I’d be the good girl, play the part and hope.’

Caroline Ingalls played by Karen Grassle 

Grassle, 80, was born in Berkeley, California on February 25, 1942. She gradated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965 with BA degrees in English and Dramatic Arts. She then received a Fulbright Fellowship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in London.

In 1968, she made her Broadway debut in the play The Gingham Dog. She also acted in Butterflies Are Free on Broadway. 

She had a few small roles including the TV movie Emily, Emily in 1977, The President’s Mistress (alongside Beau Bridges and Susan Blanchard), 1978 drama Battered, and comedy Harry’s War before she famously starred as Caroline Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie.

After that, she did not slow down – landing roles in the NBC TV movie Battered, Crisis in MidAir, Between the Darkness and the Dawn, Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, and Not to Forget (which also starred Cloris Leachman, Louis Gossett Jr., Tatum O’Neal, George Chakiris, and Olympia Dukakis).

She then moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she co-founded Santa Fe’s Resource Theater Company. She then headed to Louisville, Kentucky, where she performed with the Actors Theatre of Louisville for many years.

In 2006, she moved once again – this time to San Francisco – where she worked with San Francisco Playhouse, appearing in plays like Cabaret and Driving Miss Daisy.

She released a memoir, called Bright Lights, Prairie Dust, in November 2021, and in the book, she shared many shocking revelations about her time in Little House.

She revealed that although she and Landon appeared to be enamored with one another in the show, in real like, that was far from the case.

Grassle recalled the ‘disgusting’ jokes that Landon would tell on set, and detailed how he’d sometimes mock the way she looked. 

She also claimed that he ‘insulted’ her by insisting she shouldn’t be paid more than the child actors on the show.

She also said he would make crude remarks – using nasty language like ‘c**t’ on set and making ‘disgusting jokes about how a woman smelled after sex.’ 

She was married three times – to Leon Rossum from 1966 to 1970, to James Allen Radford from 1982 to 1987, and to Dr. Scott Sutherland from 1991 to 1997. 

She and Radford welcomed a daughter, named Lily, and a son, named Zach, together.

Laura Ingalls Wilder played by Melissa Gilbert 

Gilbert, 58, was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 8, 1964. She was adopted by late actor and comedian Paul Gilbert, and his wife, actress Barbara Crane, one day after her birth – whom later divorced. 

As a child, she appeared in tons of TV commercials, before landing the role was Laura in The Little House on the Prairie. 

After that came to an end, she continued to act – starring in the drama film Choices of the Heart, the western Sylvester, 1986 flick Choices, thriller Ice House, Stand By Your Man (alongside Rosie O’Donnell), crime show Sweet Justice, 1991 drama Switched at Birth, Then Came Jones (opposite Sean Patrick Flanery), Secrets and Lies (which also starred Ryan Phillippe and Juliette Lewis), and When We Last Spoke in 2019.

She also voiced Batgirl in Batman: The Animated Series throughout the 1990s. 

Throughout 2008 and 2009, she played Caroline ‘Ma’ Ingalls in the musical adaptation of Little House on the Prairie.

After suffering from back pain, a doctor told her she had been working on the musical with a broken back for months, and she then underwent surgery to replace a disk in her lower spine. 

She released an autobiography in 2009, in which she opened up about her past issues with alcoholism and drug abuse. 

Gilbert said she realized she had a drinking problem when one night, while a friend was over for dinner, she passed out and woke up in a dog bed. The incident prompted her to go to therapy and attend AA meetings, Today reported in 2009.

She participated in season 14 of Dancing With the Stars, during which she fell and hit her head. She was rushed to the hospital and suffered from a concussion, but continued on with the competition – ultimately coming in fifth place.

In 2016, she ran for Michigan’s 8th congressional district, but later dropped out of the race citing health issues. At the time, she came under fire after it came out that she owed $360,000 in back federal taxes and $112,000 in California state taxes. She has since reportedly negotiated a repayment plan with the IRS.

As for her love life, she had a rumored fling with Tom Cruise in the ’80s. She was also briefly engaged to actor Rob Lowe, and after that ended, she started dating Bo Brinkman – cousin of acclaimed actor Dennis Quaid.

She and Brinkman married in February 1988, and they welcomed a son, named Dakota, one year later. They divorced in 1992.

She then entered into a relationship with Bruce Boxleitner. After three engagements, they tied the knot in January 1995. 

She gave birth to their son, Michael Garrett Boxleitner, in 1995. It’s been said that he was named after her Little House on the Prairie costar Landon. 

She and Boxleitner split in 2011, and two years later, she married Busfield, whom she is still with today.

Gilbert – who underwent multiple plastic surgery procedures throughout her career – recently told Fox News that she opted to move to the mountains in New York so that she could be free in her own skin.

‘This is me now – no hair color, no filler, no implants, no Botox. I just take care of myself. I try to eat as well as I can. I drink a lot of water. And I’m really enjoying the aging process because of that,’ she said.

‘[Aging] is an uphill battle. Eventually, everyone loses. It just does not fit in with who I am and what my life is now. It’s exhausting and it’s unnecessary.

‘I had to find a place within myself where I could stop trying to, or feeling like I needed to be what everybody else wanted me to be and be exactly who I am.’

She also told People magazine about making the move: ‘I finally woke up and went, “What am I doing? I look like a carrot top, and I’m not happy.”

The 58-year-old has dubbed her new home – where she raises chickens and grows her own food – ‘The Cabbage,’ and it is where she was inspired to write her second book, Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade. A Life Rediscovered, during the height of the pandemic.  

Gilbert said she always knew at her ‘core’ that she ‘loved being in the outdoors’ and ‘around animals’ and enjoyed the ‘sweet, simple things in life.’ 

‘Our lives are simple now, and there’s a sweetness to that simplicity. And with that simplicity comes a real love for stillness and living my life in a peaceful place,’ she told Fox News. 

‘Once we got up here, once we got our land and started to look at all the things we could do with it, and then when lockdown happened, it unleashed all of this stuff inside me. There was a person who was dying to have this [new life].

‘I still can’t believe this is what my life is like now. It’s heaven. I’m just so blessed.’ 

Mary Ingalls played by Melissa Sue Anderson 

Anderson, 59, who was born on September 26, 1962, hails from Berkeley, California. As a child, she participated in numerous commercials for brands like Mattel and Sears. 

Her first on-screen role was an episode of Bewitched in 1972. She also had a guest appearance in one episode of The Brady Bunch.

When she was 11, she was cast as Mary Ingalls in The Little House on the Prairie – which earned her a nomination for the Emmy Award for Best Leading Actress in a Drama Series in 1978.

The actress left the show after seven seasons, and went on to star in Landon’s autobiographical film The Loneliest Runner, ABC’s Which Mother Is Mine? (for which she won an Emmy Award), TV movie Survival of Dana, slasher movie Happy Birthday to Me, spy series The Equalizer, Murder, She Wrote, and Kristen Bell-led movie Veronica Mars, among others.

She penned a memoir, entitled The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House, in 2010. She also served as the associate producer for the TV movie Where Pigeons Go to Die, which was Landon’s last project before he died.

She married TV producer Michael Sloan in 1990. The couple share two children, daughter Piper and son Griffin. 

Carrie Ingalls played by Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush

Identical twin sisters Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush, 51, grew up in Los Angeles, California. They were born on May 25, 1970.

The two stars jointly played Jill Hayden in the TV movie Sunshine, before they landed the role of Carrie Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie.

After their time in the series, Lindsay went on to star in one episode of the crime drama Matt Houston. She and her sister also appeared in commercials for companies like Double Mint Gum, Mattel, and KFC.

As for Sidney, she appeared in the 1983 movie Hambone and Hillie. The women then both then retired from acting so that they could focus on their education. They graduated from Santa Monica High in 1988.

Sidney married a horse breeder named William ‘Rocky’ Foster, and they were together for nine years until he died in 2009.

Lindsay wed her husband, Daniel Sanchez, in 2014 – whom she met on set of Little House. She got to know Daniel while filming at the Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, since he lived nearby. 

Nels Oleson played by Richard Bull

Richard Bull was born on June 26, 1924, in Zion, Illinois. He later said he had no interest in acting as a kid, but instead, wanted to study music. 

However, after a friend suggested that they attend the Goodman Theater School together, he said he became ‘hooked’ on acting.

He took three years off of school to serve as a radio operator in the Army, but resumed his acting studies after he was discharged in 1946.

Throughout his career, he has starred in more than 100 movies and TV shows. 

Before playing Nels Oleson in Little House on the Prairie, he acted in murder mystery The Golden Gate Murders, 1977 TV movie A Sensitive, Passionate Man, detective series Barnaby Jones, cop movie Newman’s Law, The Parallax View (alongside Warren Beatty), and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Afterwards, he landed roles in the movie A Day in a Life, The Secret, Normal (which also starred Jessica Lange, Tom Wilkinson, and Hayden Panettiere), comedy flick Let’s Go to Prison, Witless Protection (with Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy), and Osso Bucco in 2008.

After years of living in Los Angeles, he moved back to Chicago in 1994 with his wife Barbara Collentine, whom he married in 1948. He died in February 2014, at age 89. 

Harriet Oleson played by Katherine MacGregor

Katherine MacGregor was born on January 12, 1925 in Glendale, California. She graduated from Northwestern University with a major in drama, and moved to New York City in 1949.

She started her career as a dance instructor while she continued to study acting. She then started working in theater – landing roles in on and off-Broadway shows including The Seven Year Itch and Handful of Fire.

Before starring as Harriet Oleson in Little House on the Prairie, she made appearances in the soap opera Love of Life, CBS’ The Secret Storm, medical drama The Nurses, drama East Side/West Side, crime series Ironside, and 1973’s All in the Family.

After Little House on the Prairie came to an end, MacGregor didn’t act in many on-screen roles. Instead, she focused much of her time on local theater.

She also converted to the Hindu religion and spent years teaching acting to children at Wee Hollywood Vedanta Players. She retired in the early 2000s.

She was married to actor Bert Remsen from 1949 to 1950, before she wed actor and director Edward G. Kaye-Martin in August 1969. 

Their relationship made headlines since he was 14 years younger than her, but they divorced in 1970 – after only a year together. 

She passed away on November 14, 2018, at age 93. Her cause of death was never released. 

Nellie Oleson played by Alison Arngrim

Alison Arngrim, 60, was born in New York City on January 18, 1962. Her mother was a famous actress – who was best known for voicing Casper on Casper the Friendly Ghost – while her dad was a Hollywood manager.

She later claimed that she was sexually molested by her older brother, Stefan – who was also a child actor – from ages six to nine. 

She started her career as a model and then began appearing in various TV commercials. Her first major on-screen role was that of Nellie Oleson in Little House on the Prairie.

She had originally auditioned for Laura and then Mary, before she was ultimately cast as the antagonist Nellie.

After her time in Little House came to an end, she continued to act. She had guest roles in the shows The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, starred in the Western I Married Wyatt Earp and the Christmas flick Make the Yuletide Gay, and became a frequent panelist on the NBC game show Match Game-Hollywood Squares House. 

She also released her own comedy record album, called Heeere’s Amy, in which she portrayed first daughter Amy Carter, and became a successful stage actress in France.

In 2010, Arngrim released a book about her experience on Little House, called Confessions of a Prairie B***h: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated.

She was married twice, first to a man named David Spencer from 1989 to 1993 and second to a man named Robert Paul Schoonover – whom she wed in 1993 and she is still married to. 

Willie Oleson played by Jonathan Gilbert

Jonathan Gilbert, 55 – who is the younger brother of Melissa – was born on April 28, 1967, in Los Angeles, California.

Before he played Willie Oleson in Little House on the Prairie, he acted in the movie The Miracle Worker.

After it concluded, he reprised the role in the TV movies Little House: Look Back to Yesterday and Little House: The Last Farewell, but didn’t act in anything else other than that.

In Melissa’s autobiography, she wrote that Jonathan moved away from California in his early 20s, and they then became estranged, adding that he is now working as a stockbroker in New York City.

Dr. Hiram Baker played by Kevin Hagen

Kevin Hagen was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 3, 1928. He gradated from the University of Southern California, receiving a degree in international relations. 

He also studied law at UCLA for one year, before spending two years in the United States Navy.

After that, he taught ballroom dancing for Arthur Murray. When he was 27, he acted in Eugene O’Neill’s play Desire Under the Elms.

He then earned guest roles on the police series Dragnet, CBS Western Yancy Derringer, The Big Valley, Bonanza, detective series Mannix, sci-fi series Land of the Giants, crime drama The Untouchabels, The Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible, M*A*S*H, and Lost in Space from 1965 to 1968.

After he starred as Dr. Hiram Baker in Little House on the Prairie, he most famously went on to play Toughie Richards in General Hospital. He also acted in The 1990 movie The Ambulance and Bonanza: The Next Generation. 

His last role was in 1990, and in 1992, he moved to Oregon where he began performing in local concert venues and dinner theaters.

He was married multiple times, first to a woman named Adaline Sohns Heidt, and then to actress Susanne Cramer until she passed away in 1969. Together, they had one son, named Kristopher Hagen.

After her death, he married Dorali Dossantos in 1969, but they too divorced. He then wed Jan Hagen in 1993. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2004, and sadly died on July 9, 2005, at age 77.