Melissa Gilbert, famous for playing Laura Ingalls Wilder on *Little House on the Prairie*, was born on May 8, 1964, in Los Angeles. Shortly after birth, she was adopted by Barbara Crane and Paul Gilbert, a Hollywood couple. Barbara, an actress, and Paul, a comedian, adopted Melissa just 24 hours after her birth. Reflecting on her adoptive father, Melissa shared, “I have never known a more brilliant, energetic, humorous, loving, and fair person than my father.”
As Melissa grew older, she learned her biological parents, focused on their careers, had given her up because “the timing…was incorrect.” She discovered later that her birth father was a stock car racer, not a Rhodes Scholar as she’d been told, and her mother was a dancer rather than a prima ballerina.
After Paul’s death in 1976, Melissa was told he’d passed from a stroke, only to learn at age 45 that he had died by suicide. Reflecting on the secrecy, Melissa revealed, “I would never subject my children to the harm that such deep secrets do to families.”
Melissa has two sons from previous marriages and is now married to actor Timothy Busfield. Together, they enjoy life on a peaceful 14-acre property in New York’s Catskill Mountains.
Melissa’s journey of uncovering family truths has inspired her to support mental health awareness and suicide prevention, cherishing her late father’s memory and focusing on family.