Melissa Ellen Gilbert is an American actress, television director, producer, politician and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. From 1974 to 1984, she starred as Laura Ingalls Wilder on the NBC series Little House on the Prairie. In 2016, Gilbert ran for U.S. Congress as a Democrat in Michigan’s 8th congressional district and she won the Democratic primary. She later dropped out because of head and neck injuries sustained in a 2012 accident.
About Melissa Gilbert in brief
Melissa Ellen Gilbert is an American actress, television director, producer, politician and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. From 1974 to 1984, she starred as Laura Ingalls Wilder, the second oldest daughter of Charles Ingalls on the NBC series Little House on the Prairie. As an adult, she continued her career mainly in television films. She has also continued with guest starring roles on television and has done voice work for animation such as Batman: The Animated Series as Barbara Gordon Batgirl. In 2012, she was a contestant on season fourteen of the popular reality dance competition show Dancing with the Stars on ABC. In 2016, Gilbert ran for U.S. Congress as a Democrat in Michigan’s 8th congressional district and she won the Democratic primary. She later dropped out because of head and neck injuries sustained in a 2012 accident. Gilbert was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 8, 1964, to a newly engaged couple, Kathy Wood and David Darlington, and given up for adoption immediately after birth.
She was adopted one day later by actor and comedian Paul Gilbert and his wife, dancer and actress Barbara Crane, the daughter of The Honeymooners creator Harry Crane. Gilbert’s adoptive parents divorced when she was 8 years old. She then married Harold Abeles, and together they had biological daughter Sara Rebecca Abeles on January 29, 1975. On February 13, 1976, Paul Gilbert died. Although 11-year-old Melissa was told that he had suffered a stroke, she found out years later that the 57- year-old had been a VA patient who dealt with constant pain and that he took his own life. Gilbert has three children with her second husband, Bruce Boxleitner. She starred as Jean Donovan in the biopic Choices of the Heart and as Anna Sheridan in Babylon 5 with then-husband Rob Lowe. She also provided the voice of Batgirl on the 1990s Batman: The Animated series, though she would be replaced by Tara Strong for the series’ follow-up The New Batman Adventures.
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This page is based on the article Melissa Gilbert published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 09, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
