On the classic TV show Little House on the Prairie, Laura and Mary Ingalls often had to come together to deal with local bully and general town brat, Nellie Oleson, but off the screen, the dynamics were quite different. Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura, and Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie, were actually incredibly close and had a sister-like relationship off-camera.
On the other hand, Gilbert and Melissa Sue Anderson, who played her big sister Mary, didn't really get along at all.
According to Gilbert, the two young girls were often competitive and could never really connect. "From the start, for whatever reason, we never had a real sisterly kinship. She was a strikingly pretty girl, and I wasn’t, at least I didn’t think so," Gilbert wrote in her memoir Prairie Tales.
There's also the fact that Anderson was somewhat reserved and introverted, while Gilbert was more of an outgoing extrovert. "There was a distance to her, a coldness. Though sometimes I wonder if it was just that I never knew how to get her to let me in. She wasn’t easy to get along with," Gilbert wrote in her book. "I think her reserve came across on-screen and was certainly apparent offscreen, whereas I wore my emotions as if they were a neon green T-shirt that glowed in the dark."
The fact that Anderson was two years older, according to Gilbert, also made her a bit bossy. She said that Anderson took her "big sister" role too seriously.
The actress has even said that some of the sibling rivalry, bickering, and fighting on the show that you saw was real — an excuse for them to blow off steam. In the episode "The Love of Johnny Johnson," for example, the girls get into a spat because Laura has a crush on a boy who has a crush on Mary. Gilbert said that when they fought over it in that episode's scenes, it wasn't exactly acting.
In an interview, Gilbert also once recalled an episode where "Ma," played by Karen Grassle, brings home some fabric, and Laura reaches out to touch it. Mary smacks her, but Gilbert says there was more to it than playful acting. "Melissa whacked me so hard and you can see I almost started to laugh and you can see the whole spectrum of emotion on my face," she said.
Anderson has also spoken out about the girls' feud in the past. In a 2010 interview with the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, she said, "We were very, very different" and suggested she had very few memories of her time spent with Gilbert.
That may have been the case over four decades ago, but recently, the two women have reconciled and have even become close friends. Gilbert, who is 61, is currently starring in an off-Broadway play called "Pen Pals," and over the weekend, she posted a picture on Instagram of herself with some other women backstage. One of them was Anderson, who is now 63.
"But I had a secret of my own. One I’ve been keeping close to my heart for a while now," she wrote in the caption. "Reconnection with a sister. Long, healing talks. Lots of reminiscing. Lots of catching up. Lots of laughter and a few tears. I’m so happy to have Melissa Anderson back in my life. We share such an important history that no one else on earth truly understands. Just us Ingalls girls."
She continued: "The best part is, the past is now just that and we can move forward as the sisters/friends we always wanted to be. What a wonderful Christmas gift."
A wonderful gift, indeed. As someone who grew up watching reruns of the show and was so enamored with the Ingalls family that I made my friends play Little House on the Prairie with me as a kid, I thought that was pretty sweet.
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