{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "NewsArticle", "@id": "https://badiyaa.com/melissa-gilbert-michael-landon-90th-birthday/#article", "mainEntityOfPage": "https://badiyaa.com/melissa-gilbert-michael-landon-90th-birthday/", "headline": "Melissa Gilbert’s birthday letter to Michael Landon, her Little House ‘Pa’, passes 65,000 li", "description": "The Little House on the Prairie actress posted the tribute on Saturday, October 31, the day Landon would have turned 90; he died in July 1991 at 54, seven weeks after she last visited him.", "datePublished": "2026-11-02T23:38:00+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-11-02T23:38:00+00:00", "author": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Badiyaa Editorial Desk", "url": "https://badiyaa.com/author/editorial-desk/" }, "publisher": { "@type": "NewsMediaOrganization", "@id": "https://badiyaa.com/#organization", "name": "Badiyaa", "url": "https://badiyaa.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://badiyaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/badiyaa-logo-color-600x60-1.png", "width": 600, "height": 60 }, "email": "badiyaavideo@gmail.com", "publishingPrinciples": "https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/", "correctionsPolicy": "https://badiyaa.com/corrections/", "actionableFeedbackPolicy": "https://badiyaa.com/contact/", "ownershipFundingInfo": "https://badiyaa.com/about/#ownership", "sameAs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61595518283625", "https://www.instagram.com/badiyaa.com.ai/", "https://www.threads.net/@badiyaa.com.ai" ], "parentOrganization": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Rezilient Digital", "url": "https://www.rezilientdigital.com/", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "Fl No 3, Nav Shyam Sadan, Plot No 38, Pestom Sagar, Chembur", "addressLocality": "Mumbai", "addressRegion": "Maharashtra", "postalCode": "400089", "addressCountry": "IN" }, "sameAs": [ "https://www.linkedin.com/company/rezilientdigital" ] } }, "isAccessibleForFree": true, "inLanguage": "en-US", "wordCount": 574, "image": [ "https://badiyaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/Michael_Landon_2081523585-1.webp", "https://badiyaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/Michael_Landon_2081523585-1-1024x679.webp" ], "articleSection": "Entertainment", "keywords": "celebrity, Instagram, Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Gilbert, Michael Landon", "articleBody": "Melissa Gilbert marked what would have been Michael Landon’s 90th birthday on Saturday, October 31, with an open letter on Instagram signed “Your Half-Pint”, and by Monday, November 2, the post had drawn more than 65,000 likes and 2,500 comments. “Ninety years. I wonder what you would think of that,” she wrote. “I was just a little girl when you took my hand and changed my life forever.” Gilbert was nine when she was cast as Laura Ingalls opposite Landon’s Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, the NBC drama that ran from 1974 to 1983. Landon was its star, executive producer, writer and director. “You weren’t my father, but you did help raise me,” Gilbert wrote. “So much of who I am began with you.” The caption closes with an image from the show’s opening: “in my heart, I’ll always be that little girl running down a grassy hill, knowing you’re there to catch me.” Her mother, Barbara, replied under the post: “It meant everything to me that he was there for you.” One viewer wrote: “I didn’t have a father. He was like my Pa, too. Still is.” Another said she still watches the series and cries “as if it were the first time.” Who Michael Landon was Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz in Queens, New York, on October 31, 1936, and chose his stage name from a phone book after a javelin scholarship to the University of Southern California ended with a shoulder injury. He played Little Joe Cartwright on Bonanza from 1959 to 1973, Charles Ingalls from 1974 and the angel Jonathan Smith on Highway to Heaven from 1984 to 1989. He appeared on the cover of TV Guide 22 times, a tally second only to Lucille Ball. He died in Malibu, California, on July 1, 1991, at 54. A Badiyaa timeline of Gilbert and Landon 1973: The pilot is shot. Gilbert beats more than 500 child actresses for Laura and hears the news from Landon’s daughter Leslie, a schoolmate. Gilbert has said Landon later told her that when the network asked to see the screen tests, he showed executives only hers. 1974: The series starts on NBC. Gilbert has recalled Landon asking her, before emotional scenes, whether she had any idea how much he loved her. 1976: Gilbert’s adoptive father, Paul Gilbert, dies, and she grows close to the Landon family. 1982 to 1983: NBC retools the show as Little House: A New Beginning without Charles and Caroline Ingalls; the series ends in 1983 and three television movies follow in 1984. The two have little contact in the years after. May 1991: Landon’s family contacts Gilbert and she visits him at his Malibu home; he dies seven weeks later. October 1995: Gilbert names her newborn son Michael in Landon’s honor. Gilbert, now 62, has described the lesson Landon pushed hardest. In a 2015 interview she said the idea he “pounded into” her from childhood was that “nothing’s more important than ‘Home & Family'”, ahead of success or career. The birthday letter picks up the same thread. “The legacy of your wonderful work, but more importantly, the legacy of the beautiful family you created,” she wrote. “Oh Mike, you would be so proud of all of them.” Landon’s nine children include Michael Landon Jr., Leslie Landon and the actress Jennifer Landon. Gilbert’s final lines on Saturday were four words long: “Happy birthday, Pa. I love you.” Further reading Wikipedia: Michael Landon Wikipedia: Melissa Gilbert Image: Alan Light, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.", "markdown": "https://badiyaa.com/melissa-gilbert-michael-landon-90th-birthday.md" }