After leaving Walnut Grove in 1981, prairie girl Melissa Sue Anderson traded in her smock for a bra and panties as the sexy slayer in the 1981 slasher film, Happy Birthday to Me.
The child actor, who for seven seasons played the wholesome Mary Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, grew tired of the character, and needed a change.
“I was blind and boring…I couldn’t take it anymore” the now 62-year-old woman says of her signature role in the hit TV series… Keep reading to learn what the former child star has been up to since she left the prairie!
From seasons one to seven on Little House on the Prairie, Melissa Sue Anderson won the hearts of fans in her role as the beautiful blonde-haired Mary, the oldest child of parents Charles and Caroline Ingalls.
One of the most successful TV dramas, Little House on the Prairie tells the story of the Ingalls family – the patriarch played by the late Michael Landon – living in the 1870s. The show starred several now well-known actors, like Melissa Gilbert as Laura, Jason Bateman in his TV debut, and an 11-year-old Shannen Doherty.
Anderson, who previously appeared on one episode of Bewitched and The Brady Bunch, was only 11 when she landed the role of the big sister to Laura Ingalls, played by Gilbert.
The young actor starred in the show for seven of its nine seasons, and audiences watched her grow up, going from a soft-spoken girl to a strong young woman who faced much tragedy along the way.
Tragedies
In season five, her character ended up getting scarlet fever and as a result, Mary went blind. This became an anchor for her storyline over the next two seasons, where she married a blind teacher from her school and lost a baby in a fire.
In 1978, she became the only member of the show’s large cast to be nominated for an Emmy Award.
But Anderson revealed that though she was proud of her contributions to the show, she was getting tired of the character.
“It’s no fun,” she tells People. “When they run low on story ideas, someone says, ‘What can we do to Melissa Sue that’s really awful?’”
In another interview, Anderson said: “It was very limiting…I was blind and boring. Either I was just there not doing much or going through some tragedy. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Referring to Mary going catatonic after losing the baby, she said: “It became too soap opera-ish.”
Anderson, who left the show when she was 19 years old, only appeared a few episodes in the eighth season but left after that.
Life after the prairie
In 1981, the same year she left the prairie, Anderson starred in the 1981 slasher film, Happy Birthday to Me.
People describes her character as a huge change from Mary Ingalls: “She gets to booze, toke, strut around in bra and panties and shove a beef brochette – barbecue fork and all – down the throat of an over-amorous boyfriend.”
Since then, though she has many small credits to her name, Anderson’s crossover into films did not bring the success she had hoped.
In 1990, she married Michael Sloan, a writer, producer and director. The couple have two children, daughter Piper, born in 1991, and son Griffin, born in 1996.
Instead of chasing a career in Hollywood, the mother decided to focus on parenting, and in 2002, the family relocated to Canada.
“People recognized me but had a hard time believing I would come to live here,” Anderson told Hello! Canada in 2022 of living in Montreal, Quebec. “They were hesitant and did not approach me often. But I’ve never complained about being recognized. It’s part of our job.”
The magazine also reports the woman has no plans of returning to acting.
In 2010, she released her autobiography, The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House, where she shares her experience on the prairie.
Despite disappearing from the spotlight, it’s hard not to remember the youthful energy and charm she brought to Little House on the Prairie.
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