From “Little House on the Prairie” to Real Life: Melissa Sue Anderson’s Journey

Melissa Sue Anderson was born on September 26, 1962, in Berkeley, California, USA. She is best known for her role as Mary Ingalls in the TV series “Little House on the Prairie” during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

While Melissa Sue Anderson’s exact net worth is not known, it’s estimated that she had around $1.5 million by late 2018, mainly earned through her successful acting career in movies and TV shows. She continues to work and is likely to earn more in the future.

Melissa grew up in California and has an older sister. Her parents separated when she was 13, and she mostly lived with her mother, who was Catholic.

Her journey into acting began when her dance teacher suggested she try acting. She started with commercials for companies like Mattel and Sears, leading to opportunities in television. She appeared on shows such as “Bewitched,” “The Brady Bunch,” and “Shaft.”

However, her breakthrough came with the role in “Little House on the Prairie,” which she portrayed for eight years. The show revolved around a family living on a farm in the 1870s and 1880s.

Following her time on the series, Melissa Sue Anderson ventured into other projects. She received a nomination for her role in the horror movie “Happy Birthday to Me” the year after leaving “Little House on the Prairie.”

She continued to act in movies and TV shows like “The Equalizer,” “Murder, She Wrote,” and “CHiPs.” She also tried her hand at producing, contributing to the creation of a show called “Where Pigeons Go to Die,” which was Michael Landon’s final project.

In 1998, she was honored and inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame. The following year, she appeared in the TV show “Partners,” but it didn’t perform well.

As she grew older, Melissa Sue Anderson reduced her acting roles. One of her last TV appearances was in the miniseries “10.5 Apocalypse” in 2006, where she played the role of the First Lady.

She took on smaller movie roles and played Stosh’s mom in the show “Veronica Mars” in 2014, although she was uncredited. Melissa wrote a book titled “The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House,” in which she shared stories from her time as a child star and talked about the people she worked with.

In 2002, her family relocated to Montreal, and they later became Canadian citizens. She made the decision to step back from acting and focus on caring for her family.

During an interview, she discussed one of the most challenging parts of her job, which was when her character on “Little House on the Prairie” went blind in the fourth season.