Melissa Gilbert says her life was an ‘illusion’

Melissa Gilbert had a complicated upbringing. “A large part of my life has been an illusion,” she wrote in “Prairie Tale” (via Today). “… There’s my mother’s version, there’s the one in the press, there’s the one I lived, and there’s the one I’m still trying to figure out.” Her story began in 1964 when she was born to parents that couldn’t commit to raising her, placing her up for adoption. Barbara Crane and Paul Gilbert adopted Gilbert but shielded the truth about her birth parents’ careers. The actor later discovered her mother was a dancer, not a prime ballerina as she had been told, and that her father was a stock car racer, not an esteemed scholar. Gilbert’s adoptive parents split when she was eight years old, and her mother re-married. “I was never close to him. I never liked him,” she said of her mother’s second husband.

Melissa Gilbert says her life was an ‘illusion’

Melissa Gilbert had a complicated upbringing. “A large part of my life has been an illusion,” she wrote in “Prairie Tale” (via Today). “… There’s my mother’s version, there’s the one in the press, there’s the one I lived, and there’s the one I’m still trying to figure out.” Her story began in 1964 when she was born to parents that couldn’t commit to raising her, placing her up for adoption. Barbara Crane and Paul Gilbert adopted Gilbert but shielded the truth about her birth parents’ careers. The actor later discovered her mother was a dancer, not a prime ballerina as she had been told, and that her father was a stock car racer, not an esteemed scholar. Gilbert’s adoptive parents split when she was eight years old, and her mother re-married. “I was never close to him. I never liked him,” she said of her mother’s second husband.

In the spirit of giving back, in 2022 Gilbert wrote an essay for the organization PanCAN, which advocates for those with pancreatic cancer and leads research into the disease. Urging people to support the non-profit to help find a way to end the disease, she also described how deep her grief continued to be 31 years after Landon’s death, noting, “I am aching for him.” Later, she added, “I hate pancreatic cancer with a passion that is volcanic. I want to wipe this disease out completely.”