Whatever Happened to ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Star Melissa Sue Anderson?
Melissa Sue Anderson will always be best-know as Little House on the Prairie‘s beleaguered big sister Mary Ingalls. But the blond, blue-eyed beauty, who sometimes dropped the Sue from her name, had a much longer career than that. She was a popular guest star on other series and TV movies in the ’70s and ’80s, especially those aimed at kids and teens. From Afterschool Specials to The Brady Bunch (where Anderson had her first onscreen kiss) to Fantasy Island and The Love Boat, Anderson, now 62, was in demand, until she left acting to raise her two kids.
Here are a few more things you may not know about Melissa Sue Anderson.
1 She really did plant one on Bobby
In The Brady Bunch‘s 100th episode, Anderson played Cindy Brady’s pal Millicent, who gives the youngest Brady boy a thank-you smooch for saving her from another boy’s teasing. The peck makes Bobby see skyrockets and dream of chaste romance. But a follow-up kiss on Millicent’s doorstep, just to confirm those skyrockets, might land Bobby a case of the mumps.
2 Anderson originally wanted to be a dancer
In a 1979 interview with Fayetteville, Arkansas’s Northwest Arkansas Times, Anderson revealed that she actually intended to be a dancer. Her dance teacher suggested acting lessons too, so Anderson gave it a try and booked a commercial for Mattel. She bugged her mom to get her an agent and became a sought-after actress at age 10.
3 Credit a raccoon for landing her more Little House lines
In her 2010 memoir The Way I See It, Anderson describes how the Little House on the Prairie Season 1 episode, “The Raccoon,” changed how the series’ writers perceived her as actress.
Since Mary’s little sister Laura (Melissa Gilbert) was intended to be the focal point of the series, Anderson didn’t have much to do in the earliest episodes. Until “The Raccoon,” when Mary breaks Laura’s only doll and tries to console her by gifting her with an abandoned baby raccoon. It works — until one day, the critter, named Jasper, bites the family dog, Jack, and runs for the woods. Soon after, a four-legged masked marauder starts raiding the hen house, so Pa (Michael Landon) shoots it and discovers it’s rabid.
Here’s where the episode takes a turn in Mary and Melissa’s favor. Landon had to stop filming the episode when he was diagnosed with meningitis, so a pivotal close-up scene went to Anderson instead. The young actress nailed the heartbreak required in the scene, and began scoring better material.
4 She was the only ‘Little House’ cast member to earn an Emmy nomination
Though Little House on the Prairie was a magnet for Emmy nominations throughout its 9-season run, most of those accolades went to people behind the scenes. At age 16, following the season when Mary Ingalls goes blind, Anderson became the only cast member to earn a nomination of her own, scoring a nod for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Anderson lost to Family‘s Sada Thompson, but the distinction confirmed writers’ decision to make Mary a more substantial character — and Anderson’s fighting for more lines.
5 Anderson is now a naturalized citizen of Canada
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
Anderson married prolific screenwriter Michael Sloan, whom she met on a 1989 episode The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in 1990. Twelve years later, the couple moved to Montreal with their son Griffin, now 29 and a New York City screenwriter, and now 34-year-old daughter Piper, a non-profit manager. In 2007, the family made their life in Canada official, becoming naturalized citizens on Canada Day. Her husband died in August 2025, at the age of 78.
Anderson largely retired from acting in the ’90s, though she still makes periodic appearances; in 2014, she appeared in the feature film adaptation of the cult TV series Veronica Mars, and her most recent credit is a very small role in the 2018 Uma Thurman heist comedy The Con is On.
Do you remember Melissa Sue as Millicent? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
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