Melissa Gilbert and The Modern Prairie Life
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Hello everyone and welcome to the Jan Arden Podcast. I am Jan Arden. This is the podcast and show that you have been searching for your whole life long, except for Sarah Burke's podcast, Women in Media.com.

who is like climbing up the damn charts, talking to Jennifer Valentine and kicking ass all over the place and getting onto the best podcasts of the day lists. Sarah Berg is in Toronto. I'm in London, England. Welcome. Welcome to the show. Welcome, Sarah. How the hell are you? You're not good. Tell the people what's going on. I got COVID. Son of a bitch.

It's been one year. My friend this morning was like, happy one year anniversary, I guess. You can hear I just sound a little nasally, but we have a special guest today, which we're going to get to, so I wasn't about to let anything happen there. I just have a really bad sinus headache and cold. The craziest part is I spent most of the last four days with my parents. We were at the cottage and hanging out with the dog. My parents are fine. I have no idea how I got it. Here

Here we are. Your mother gave it to you. I was going to bring this up as like a topic for the show. You know, when you were taking care of your parents, you know, you did a lot of caregiving for them. Yes. Did they ever still try to enforce things on you like rules from when you were a teenager? Because I just found at the cottage this weekend, there were so many things my mom's like, you are not going in a kayak. And I was like, Mom, no.

I'm going to wear a life jacket. 36 years old. Talk to you soon. Well, you know, you're always the kid. Yeah. You're never going to be. It doesn't matter if you're 55. So when I was looking after my mom and my dad, I still had two parents in their late 70s telling me what I should be doing. Yeah. And I never felt grown up around mom and dad ever.

Here's another one. So I come downstairs on Sunday morning and my dad looks like all stern and he's like, so did you have some company last night? And I'm looking at him like, what are you talking about? It's just the three of us at the cottage and the dog. What do you mean the company?

And he's like, well, what about this? He shows me a video from like the doorbell security system. It's a video of me pacing back and forth. I was on the phone with my boyfriend trying not to wake my parents up, but I was wearing a ball cap. He like thought I was a guy I had invited over late at night or something. I'm like, dad, that's me. Oh God, it's a little bit embarrassing. I walked home many, many years ago from a party. I think I was like 20 and I was

still at home. I was just about to leave. Anyway, these parties were so wild and everyone in Canada, as you know, takes their shoes off at the door, right? So there was like 100 kids in the house, 80 kids in the house drinking beer and playing Jackson Brown records and smoking cigarettes and smoking dope and hash and all that stuff. The house was a mess. All these shoes are at the door. When I finally, I stayed to help my friends clean up and we were literally cleaning

the kitchen with snow shovels to like get stuff into green bags. Anyway, I digress. So when I went to go home, my shoes were gone. Somebody wore my shoes or took my shoes. So like the last few pairs, there wasn't, it was slim pickings and you want to find two of the same shoe. Right. And I had like two miles to walk home. So I put on these giant fucking work boots and I walked home and I didn't think I got in the door. Like it was probably only like two o'clock in the morning.

And it's not like I was 14, I was 20. So I left these giant work boots at the back door and I went downstairs because now, you know, because I'm the old kid staying, living at home, I'm sleeping in the basement. I know where this is going. So my mom, you know, she gets up early in the morning because she's got dogs to feed and birds to feed and all that stuff. And she sees these men's work boots at the back door. She was mortified. Mortified.

And it embarrasses me to talk about to this day. And my mother's not even alive anymore, but she, I guess she says, when I finally came upstairs, it was like 10 o'clock. My mom was just like, hardly talking to me, like not saying anything. Will you slut late? That's the same tone my dad used. And then it was finally like, do you have company? Well, who's here? I'm like, nobody's here. Still hadn't thought about the boots. I had forgotten all about walking home in these boots. Yeah.

And she finally goes, those boots right there. Who the hell? You know, stop lying to me. You never used to be a liar. And I was just like, mom, those I had to wear those boots home. Well, we laughed about it years later. But at the time, it was just a glimpse into my mom's mind. It's a hard thing for me to think about. Anyway.

So you're in the UK. I'm in the UK. I flew from Iceland because it was only two hours and 45 minutes here. So I came to hang out. I had to finish my book. I was just finishing up my novel edit, which comes out November the 7th. Little plug, little plug. And I'll tell you more about it soon. How was the birthday? Okay, the birthday is coming up, but I was still a surprise.

for, and it was so cute. Nigel's like, go get, go sit in her chair. She was coming home from the hairdressers. So I'm in this tiny little town called Acton. That's all these old stone cottages. And I got into her chair and I'm being really quiet. And I could hear her coming in and talk to Nigel. And he had told her that his friend Graham was coming up and she says, Oh, is Graham here? And he goes,

Yeah, you know, go in the living room. He's just in there. And so she came around the corner and I popped up. Well, I thought I was going to give her a freaking heart attack. She was so happy to see me. And it's so fun to surprise people. And it's fun to give people things to look forward to. And it's fun to celebrate, you know, getting a year older. I'm not great with birthdays on my own, but I know that I need to start celebrating that time a little bit more effectively and with a little bit more joy. It's not that I don't want to get older. I'm just not a birthday person myself. Right?

But with Nigel, because he's got a background as a publicist, does he weigh in on any of the stuff you're working on with the book? Absolutely. Absolutely. And constantly. And I'm so grateful from the cover to how to approach the edit process. He works with one of the biggest crime writers in the world, Linda LaPlante, who has sold

tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of books. And we've talked about her on the show before. So he knows, you know, he works in not only in the literary part of the world, but in television. And, you know, and Linda writes still, she just turned 80 years old. She writes two books a year. So it's a very quick turnaround. So he knows. You're going to be the same. Oh God, this took me 13 years, Sarah. Yeah.

It's okay. Well, I'm really excited today. And as much as I want to go on about you and I sneaking into our parents' homes with ball caps and large work boots, we have a really incredible guest on today's show. I think the entire podcast could be taken up just singing her praises and telling you what Melissa Gilbert has been up to the last 45 years. But we're not going to do that. We're going to

do a brief synopsis. She is, of course, an actor, director, producer, politician, which I loved. Going to touch on that today. Former president of the Screen Actors Guild. Can't even imagine what that entailed. She's also a fellow podcast host. You probably know her best as Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on the Prairie.

You've been in so many commercials. You have been in amazing movies, Diary of Anne Frank. I will never forget as long as I live. The Miracle Worker, which I absolutely want to ask you about today. That's just to name a couple of things. I'm going to stop now and please welcome Melissa Gilbert. Oh,

Thank you. Yes. Whenever I hear things like that or I read what I've done in my life, I just get very tired. And I should say author, you have penned four books, probably working on another one as we speak. Yeah, it is unbelievable to see the culmination of time and just how many things you've done. Do you have a favorite thing that you do or do you love it all? Do you just love creativity?

I love creativity for sure. There's not a lot of creativity in the political realm.

So I felt a little more out of my element in that world. I feel much more at home in the film, television, writing. And when I'm not doing that and I'm home, I'm becoming a crafter supreme. I knit. I do cross-stitch. I do needlepoint. I do embroidery. I'm learning how to make rolled beeswax candles, and I'm learning felting next. And now I've become sort of the Nana that I am. I'm a Nana now. And so...

I've just sort of taken to all of that sort of Nana stuff, like a duck to water. And you're younger than I am. It's an incredible thing to be a Nana and it's gotta be the greatest gift that

to have these little individuals in your life. And it kind of refocuses what's important about living this life on earth. It really does. And someone said to me a while back, and it's 100% true that they're the best thank you note you could possibly get. And they really are. And each one of them, they're all so different. They're all over the place. They're all over the country. We have eight grandchildren now total.

And it's so fulfilling. I love being with them because we're very relaxed. It's not like they're our kids' kids and we're learning as we go. We've done this before. We are very much at ease. We pass the babies back and forth, whether they're four days old or eight years old. It's so much more easeful. And then also, we get to exact a little bit of revenge by returning them all caffeinated on sugar. Yeah.

Here, go with your mom and dad, take your bag of candy, and we'll talk to you next week. Yes, here's a candy and a drum kit. Enjoy. Bad Nana with a drum kit. Nana has a drum kit. Why not? I love it. I love it. I know this is a question you've been probably asked a million times, but did you have any idea, and do you still have any idea of the impact that the Little House series has?

had globally. And I say that because my friend Nigel, he said, please tell Melissa that me as a little boy watching this, mind boggled about Walnut Grove and the wagons and Pa and Nellie Olsen. And like, he just, he really lit up

He was as excited as I was that we were going to be talking. But just, he said, tell her how impactful it was to glimpse into a world, the world that you guys created. Yeah, it's not lost on me ever. It never was. It never will be. And what amazes me though, is that, you know, we're literally right now in the 50th

A few months ago was the 50th anniversary of the airing of the pilot episode. And the next year is the 50th anniversary of the actual premiere of the television series in September of 2024. And I've been amazed at how steadily people have been, you know, there have been different generations coming up and watching and learning and people like me show it to their grandchildren. But they've been doing that since before I was a nana. And

And then the show, you know, it's just sort of been rolling quietly along. It went into syndication while we were shooting, which is really unusual. So it's never been off television all around the world. And then during lockdown, it's,

In the beginning of the pandemic, it had a real resurgence. And then when the world started going through this incredible social upheaval and dealing with, you know, civil rights and Black Lives Matter and all of that stuff that was happening that summer.

Little House had another resurgence because we did so many episodes about quarantines and plagues. And then also Michael Landon was so determined to tell the stories of what our world was going through at the time we were filming in the 1970s. We were dealing with civil rights issues and veterans coming home from Vietnam addicted to heroin and all this stuff. So he told those stories on our show.

And it really resonated. I started seeing a lot of stuff on social media. People like Viola Davis were quoting Little House on the Prairie. Jamie Foxx is posting, who knew they were woke?

And I'm just sort of watching this go by going, well, we were, we just didn't call it that. We were just conscious of what was going on. I myself wasn't, but I learned all of that by shooting these things. You're one of the few child actors that seems to have emerged unscathed.

from a world that we know had negative impact on so many dozens and dozens, even going back to little rascals when you're looking at things made in the 30s and the 40s.

Yeah.

No, no. I mean, not that I didn't have, you know, and I haven't had problems and issues and dealt with stuff. We all do. It's life. We all go through things. I was luckily able to keep a lot of my stuff relatively private. Remember when I was a kid actor, I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. There were no cell phones.

So when we would go somewhere and we would be in a VIP room, we really were in a private VIP area and there was no paparazzi around. And now everyone with a phone is a paparazzo. So there's absolutely no privacy. So that part is completely different. And also having spent so much time with, I don't even call them child actors anymore. We were employed minors.

And the majority of us, of we employed minors, the ones who had the biggest problems were the ones who had the biggest problems at home more than at work. It was the exploitation of parents, the hiding of money, parents not paying attention to what was going on and allowing things to happen, serving their kids up on a silver platter. And I mean, if you saw the Pretty Baby, the Brooke Shields documentary, I mean, literally served up on a silver platter.

Um, and I think there is a lot to get through in the business itself. I mean, it's a strange world for kids. Um, but if the family life is not relatively functional, it's a recipe for absolute disaster. I think. Do any of your kids, your grandkids express any interest in going into the business? Um, the majority of them are involved in some way. The kids, Tim's eldest son is a

Very, very, very, very well-known and highly sought after director of photography for fashion and commercials. He's really talented. My two oldest are actors and also to sustain themselves. One of them works as a background performer in a stand-in. The other one is a boom operator and they make their own movies and have since they were kids.

My youngest, Michael Boxleitner, is an actor, graduated from college with a degree in the arts and moved to New York to study and start his career right before lockdown. But he's there now.

He has an agent and he's back at work. His survival job is bartender. He's doing the New York thing and he's great. We had one child, Sam Busfield, briefly got his EMT license and was a set medic on a TV series my husband produced that I got to be in with him.

So they've been around and they've all grown up backstage. They've all been around the business, but not a lot of them got into it. I don't know. We have one grandchild who says, when am I going to get to be on this stage? She's five, Ruby. Yeah.

So her parents are screwed. Yes. Little cutie pie. And, you know, I'm seeing budding comedians and dancers everywhere, but I'm just kicking back to let them, you know, we'll see what they want to be. What's something you would tell like, you know, a younger person getting into this world right now? Like what's your biggest lesson learned from everything that you've done? Well, my experience is going to be different from most people's because I started so young and I...

Freakishly, I mean, like the percentage of people who fall into a, you know, decades long television series at the age of nine is really, I think it's like 2% possibility. So it's like lightning striking. It's crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. And I started at two, you know, with a family who all watched me, you know, dancing around the living room and went, uh-oh. Yeah.

So that's different. Most people start, you know, they start to feel that pull in elementary school, high school, or they're liking their dance classes and you can really see it coming. And for those young people, I would say do as much as you can. Keep working and working and working. Do all the plays at school. Do all the community theater you can. If you're really passionate about it, keep working.

working at it, as my husband says, keep getting the bad out and just keep leveling it up. Community theater, regional theater, developing your craft, learn how to dance, learn how to sing, learn how to act, learn how to do all different kinds of styles, learn everything from Shakespeare to Neil Simon to

Ryan Murphy, have monologues at the ready. Never stop, never stop bettering yourself and growing and just keep doing it and doing it. And eventually, you know, you'll get the bad out. And if you are good enough, the cream rises and you will work. Do you ever find, Melissa, and I know I hear this in music a lot, this kind of narrative about, you know, why do you want to go into music? Oh, I want to be famous. Yes.

And I think I get so kind of discouraged hearing young people that do want to go into the arts, that do want to be actors, that do want to be in film and television, that they're very driven. And maybe it's social media. Maybe it's, you know, that people just they want what you have, but they don't want to do the work.

They just want someone to pluck them out of a shopping mall or from a contest and stick them in a movie. And suddenly they're this overnight thing. So I do get kind of leery, weary, you know, just this fatigue, this fame fatigue. I'll call it that. Yeah, I do too. And it's not an art form that they're looking to enter. It's a lifestyle, you know, and people now are famous for nothing all over the place. It's such a weird environment. I mean, nothing.

Nothing. They do nothing. I used to get really frustrated when sports athletes would retire and go, I guess I'm going to be an actor now. You don't understand. What do you mean? What does that even mean? It's a very difficult job. It's a job. The fame part is really a pain in the ass.

But if, you know, that's the part I don't enjoy. But if you're an artist, yeah, it's just not going to come magically. You can't magically become – I mean, I guess nowadays you can magically become a pop star for a minute. But eventually people are going to figure out that you really can't sing, right? I hope. Yeah.

So I think, you know, for all of those people who just think they can be famous for being famous, it's going to end, isn't it? Yeah. But I loved hearing you talk about doing the work. And, you know, when I think about being in the bars, I just turned 61. So I've been in music for...

42 years or something, 43 years professionally in music. And I just, I cannot tell you how many bars I dragged myself to Melissa, how many shitty gigs. I remember one gig up, up in Northern British Columbia where the stage was bound in chicken wire. I remember saying to the owner, you're like, is that kind of an art thing? And he goes, no, it's just to keep you guys safe. People chuck stuff at the band all the time.

And I just think back to things like that. And I'm like, oh my God. And people often ask me, would you do it again? Would you do it again? And I don't think I would. I don't know if I could, A, manage even half of the hangovers that I had.

I just, I can't imagine going through that again. But I don't think people now, young people now are prepared or could even look at that. Listen, you're going to have to be in the bars for 15 years. Are you ready to do it? I think it would be a hard no. Yeah. It requires effort. I mean, it's not something that just magically happens. I mean, it can magically happen, but it's not sustainable. And I think the thing is, is that so many people go into the arts thinking,

Now, young people go into the arts thinking it's a way out and it's just going to be easy and it's just something to do. And then when it goes away and it fizzles away, they go, well, because they haven't prepared themselves to make it a career.

There's a difference between a hobby and a career or just a fun thing to do. And a career in the arts requires a lot of dues paying. You got to pay your dues in the beginning. I mean, I did a lot of dumb commercials before I did Little House on the Prairie and I was a baby, right? I mean, I, I, I,

I did the daddy, daddy, I only have one cavity stuff and the butterball turkey and McDonald's and a tied laundry detergent, you name it. And I would go into the audition rooms and say, oh yeah, that's my favorite detergent in the whole world. I would make up whatever it was just to get the job.

Because I inherently knew that I wanted to do it too. But you have to start here to get here. You're never going to just be there. Even like, I find it very frustrating that people just think it can happen very easily. And if you want it to be a short-term thing, sure, it can happen easily. But if you want to have a long-term career, you have to put the effort in.

And you have to pay your dues and you have to play the bars with the chicken wire. It's just the way, that's just how it starts. That's actually a great analogy for the beginning. I know Sarah wanted to talk to you about the modern Prairie brand. And I love how you've

sort of placed it like your description of what the modern Prairie brand is. So I'm going to, I'm going to let Sarah take this one. Sarah said to me in a very lovingly way, she goes, Jan, you are a modern Prairie woman. And I'm like, thank you very much. Yes, I am. Yep. She is. Let's just read what we saw on your website, which I think is so perfect.

Modern Prairie is a brand centered around the modern mature women and their needs, focusing on empowering them to regain their confidence through aging. As we age, it can feel like a struggle to be seen and heard, which can result in us feeling isolated or that we don't belong. At Modern Prairie, we want to change that by creating a space where women can share their stories, ask questions, and learn from each other.

Where did Modern Prairie come from? How did you know you needed to create that brand? Well, I sort of had the idea that I would do something like this for a really long time, but I didn't really know what it would be or exactly how it was going to happen. So really, it actually started out maybe 15 or more years ago as sort of a more retail heavy lifestyle kind of brand.

And that was sort of the original concept. And there was a deck built up for it and stuff, but it wasn't, I mean, it was good, but it really didn't go anywhere. And I really didn't pursue it because it just didn't, I don't know why. I just, so many other things took precedent. I mean, if you go back 15 years, there's kids at home. I'm still living in Los Angeles.

I was still shooting movies all the time. So there was a lot on my plate and it just sort of fell by the wayside. And then when the timing was right and I met the right people, my partner, Nicole Hasi, who is our CEO and is brilliant and co-founder, we were introduced by mutual friends. And I told her about this idea I had and she came to me with her version of a deck that

And I had my deck, which was not great. And she showed me this gorgeous sort of layout of what we could be. And we had a lot of conversations and we decided to go for it. And what it's become is, yes, there is the retail component of

But the things we sell are things we love. And every item we sell has a story. And the makers, who are all women, we don't sell anything made by men. It's all women-made, women-owned companies. We're completely supporting women in small businesses all over the country and Canada. They all have their stories, which are really fascinating. And so the products are very, very special and hand-chosen and designed by us with our makers, as we call them.

And then the other component is the community component, which is something that we had hoped we would be able to launch and nurture, but it's exploded into this. You know, the best way I can describe it is to say that when we have our workshops, which are on everything from how to deal with grief during the holidays to how to make a great pie crust. I mean, really everything. You know, we've got other things down the pike, how to care for elderly parents, how

finding support as you go through that. What to do with your rescue dog when she climbs on your lap in your Zoom. Say hi, Chicago. Hi, Chicago. Oh, she's such a good girl. She loves you. Oh, she does. She's so sweet. She loves her dad too. She's just the best. Okay. We have a lot more stuff to cover right here on the Jan Arden Podcast and Show when we come back. More with Melissa Gilbert.

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What's happened though with Modern Prairie that I love so much is when we had these workshops and I try and attend all of them if I can. I've missed very few. I think I missed two. In the beginning, all of the women in our Zoom workshops would more or less, the majority of them would have their cameras off.

And now everyone's cameras are basically on. And not only are we sharing with one another, but they're communicating offline and supporting each other and creating this community where they're helping each other deal with grief or deal with this extraordinary syndrome that we've just touched on and are going to get into more deeply called invisible woman syndrome, which is what happens when we get older, we become invisible. I mean, literally everything is geared towards people who are...

considerably younger than we are, which is so nonsensical because not only are we the wise ones, but we hold the purse strings. So I don't know why they're trying to sell to the kids who are going to come ask us for money to buy this stuff. And the discounting of aging women is really disheartening and we want to change that. My goal in all of this, and I just had a huge deja vu, by the way,

My goal in all of this is to reach a point where we're looking at women like us or like Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren and not going, isn't she incredible for her age? We're just saying, isn't she incredible? Preach. That's it. Why are you the qualifier? Yeah. And I think sometimes women are guilty of that, doing that to each other. Yep. I'm often asked about just...

being in music and coming up through music and, you know, spending a lot of time in Los Angeles in the nineties. And, you know, we're men hard on you and, you know, with weight and, you know, your look and everything. I'm like, actually, no, the women that I worked with in the marketing departments were particularly vicious sometimes and very hard on me. Yeah. That might not be the case anymore, but I always found that very

you know, telling, but I love that the forum, I love that you've said the cameras are coming on now. So that anonymity, that invisible woman syndrome that people actually women do to themselves by turning that camera on and being vulnerable and giving that visibility is

They're suddenly seeing, you know, the other 30, 40 faces up on the screen going, there she is, there she is. Oh, her hair is like that. Or she's, her hair is gray or she's got a t-shirt on her. It's amazing that we are trapped by our own perceptions of ourselves. Yep. Absolutely. And I was the first, I was so deep in it too. When I lived in Los Angeles, I mean, I,

I had the convertible car. My face was Botoxed and fillered. My hair was dyed. I had my implants in. And I just, first of all, I looked in the mirror one day and went, oh my God, who is that? I look like Carrot Top. That's not a good look for even Carrot Top. You never look like Carrot Top, but anyway. Oh, I'll send you a picture. But it reached a point where it just gets, it's exhausting, first of all.

expensive, second of all, and pointless, third of all, because we're just aging. It's only aging. It's not...

I mean, it's just a natural process that we all go through. There seems to be a movement of women embracing aging now. I think Jan is part of it for sure. You're part of it. Yeah. I hope that will continue and I hope that it will only grow because trying to stop something that's inevitable, it's exhausting and it's mentally and emotionally depleting. You miss out on life. Yeah, you do. You miss everything else. Like,

I mean, if you're running to the dermatologist and you're, I mean, just in the time that it takes to maintain all that stuff. I just, I would so much rather sit and cross-stitch or play with a grandchild or go for a walk with my husband or go to a movie or take a yoga class because that makes my body feel good.

Yeah, you know what? Aging can be hard. My ankles sometimes are achy in the morning and my body doesn't do the things that it used to do, but I'm really grateful for the things that it does do. I mean, I'm going to be 59 in a couple of weeks. It's great. We're not that far apart in age, Jan. No, I know, but it is a privilege. You might've seen this. I was going through Instagram like yesterday, came across the Katie Couric Instagram

interview with Andy McDowell. And Andy was talking about aging and her hair going gray. And she said to Katie, I was young. I don't be young anymore. I want to be old. I want to be old. I don't want to do that anymore. I was there. I did it. They can do it. Let them be young. I don't want to be young. And I got chills, Melissa, because

I was looking at her going, she goes, I'm 65 years old. I deserve to be, you know, where I am. So it's really liberating that women like yourself, like Annie McDowell, Jane Fonda, my God, the timeless Jane Fonda, you know, who is more badass than ever. It really is so inspiring. So thank you for getting out there and kicking ass.

Yeah. Well, let's not forget that. We've earned the right to our opinions. We know what we're talking about at this point. I don't have time for the BS anymore. I don't have time for tiny talk. I don't have time for things that are not important. I'm looking at this last third of my life going, okay, what really matters and what makes me happy?

And even more so, what do I not want in my life? Did politics make you happy? I have to ask. Nope. No. Politics did not make me happy. It made me feel like I was doing something for somebody else, which does make me happy. And that is why I was there. But the actual process of it and that whole world is so incredibly dysfunctional. And talk about being a place where you can't be yourself.

Good gravy. And if that is who you are, ugh. If you are a career politician, I don't know. I don't know how you got there. I mean, I remember so clearly I was going to a fundraiser at a beer garden in Detroit. Of course you were. So I had on, yeah, it was a fundraiser. And I had on jeans and a blouse and a blazer. And my campaign manager came to pick me up.

And it was with the head of the DNC had flown in for all of the Democratic candidates in Michigan. And he said, you're wearing jeans. And I said, yeah. He said, you can't wear jeans. I said, we're going to a beer garden with sawdust on the floor.

I have a blazer on. I'm wearing an Armani blazer. He said, no, no, no, you can't wear jeans. I changed. I didn't want to. And then another time they said to me, we know you're funny, but when you're speaking to your constituents, probably best to dial back on the humor. Right?

So you're telling me not to be who I am and not to dress as who I am, to feel... I used to refer to myself ultimately as the candidate. There was Melissa and then there was the candidate. And I would suit up and go to the campaign events and speaking engagements and all the things that I had to do, but it wasn't me. And that was really hard. And...

The political landscape is so wildly dysfunctional that until we take the money out of politics, it's never going to be for the people by the people. It's only going to be for the few by the few. It's been interesting to watch it unfold this past seven, eight years. But on to happier things, because I would be remiss if I didn't get to these questions.

We asked people on Twitter, on Instagram, what they would like to ask you. We got a lot of responses. I'm sorry to everyone listening today. We're not going to get to everybody. But first of all, Nigel, my friend that heard you as a child, across the pond here, Melissa, has...

Have you ever been to Walnut Grove, the actual place? Have you ever been there? I have. We did a Little House on the Prairie musical, actually, and I played Ma. Yes, I knew that. We toured the whole country, and we did a couple of different things when we were on tour. We had a partnership with Habitat for Humanity. So one thing we did is every Wednesday, we built a house in every city we went to. Holy crap.

Yeah, I know. And then, yeah, it's really fun. A bunch of musical theater actors building a house. I wouldn't live in that house, but you know, God knows I'd rather have it built by an actual builder. Listen, if the toilet flushes, come on. It's good. That's true. It's true. And there's a nice sort of hum to the walls. Yeah. Yeah.

And then whenever we were near one of the little house homesteads, we would all hop in a bus and go. And so we went to Walnut Grove together when we were playing in Minnesota. Love it. And it's not, there's nothing there. It's just a streetlight basically and just some monuments to Laura. Walnut Grove has a museum with half of it's dedicated to the actual Laura Ingalls Wilder and then the other half is the show.

And they have the Nellie's restaurant and all of that stuff. But they do have the area on Plum Creek where the Saudi was. And that's pretty amazing. My favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder site, though, is Mansfield, Missouri. And that's where she and Al Manzo and Rose are buried. And.

And that is the house that they built together. And then the rock house is there that Rose, their daughter, built for them. And they have so much incredible memorabilia. They have Paz Fiddle there. And it's really, very... Really emotional. Very emotional, very spiritual, very significant visit.

And I did not do that one on when we were on tour because we didn't play Missouri. So Tim and I actually went there year before last. We were driving from Arkansas to, you know, from Chicago to Houston and then from Houston back to Chicago. And so we went to, we stopped in Missouri.

That's a long ass drive. Yeah, we do those. We like, we like a long drive. We're, we're, we're road people. I'm with you. I will go with you guys anytime. Swing by Springbank, Alberta. Pick me up. I'll bring the snacks. Next question. How is your back and neck doing? This is M McCullough. I,

I think she had surgery a couple of years ago. Also, it's nice to see that she made it out safely from the child actor stuff. I remember your Instagram stories and I could not believe what you endured and what you went through. So how are you? I'm good. Neck, back are fine. I do yoga four or five times a week, which is my happy place. And

And I have no, thank God, I'm knocking on my head, which is made of wood. I have no pain and no residual stiffness of any kind. And I'm doing fine. And we just took a peek at everything in my spine and it all looks perfect. So there's nothing new brewing and I'm in great shape. Is it not miraculous what they do? Let me tell you the last surgery I had when they took out all the hardware from a failed fusion in my neck and put in an artificial disc.

life-changing. And the fact that they didn't have that just 10, 15 years ago, now they have these artificial discs, which are, I mean, the advances medicine is making are just, it's mind-boggling to me. And I'm so grateful that I was able to be a recipient of that. I cannot get my head around the work they do on spines, necks, legs, eyeballs. My mother went in for getting something late. Anyway, it took 15 minutes.

It was 6,500 bucks, but it was 15 minutes later. She came out and she could see. I'm just like, I can't even believe that. She goes, I didn't feel anything. I had the nicest nap.

Yeah. Caroline S., my favorite scene from Little House was when, and I remember this very well, was when Laura pushed Nellie down the hill in her wheelchair. It's permanently etched in my mind. And I know you and Allison Ingram are still such great friends. So many great friendships forged from that. But that was a fun scene. That was a fun scene. And she has, obviously, her take on it is different than mine. All I had to do was push.

They had a couple, they had a couple of different things rigged up for the wheelchair. They had one with obviously a dummy of her in the wheelchair. And then they actually had one that like they pulled a little ways that rattled and rocked. Um,

We had some fun a few years ago back when I lived in LA. Actually, we'll go back to medicine for a second. I had to go for my colonoscopy because that's what we do. And there wasn't really anyone around to take me at the time. So she took me. And as we were leaving the surgery center, they don't let you walk out. She had to push me out in a wheelchair and she said, maybe I should find the nearest hill. Please don't.

Please don't. You know, that's a true friend. When someone will take you for your colonoscopy and help you prep for that, that's a true friend. How do you feel about directing?

What's your favorite? Like you're directing, you're producing, you're writing. How is it being on the other side of the camera with direction? I like it. I like it a lot. I haven't done it in a long time, but I really enjoy it. And I sort of feel like I get to do it a little bit when I work with Tim on the stuff that we do because he has such tremendous respect for my opinion and my ideas. I can't even tell you what a dream it is to have an actual real partner in life.

And so I love the creative process. If I had my druthers, I'd probably be acting, but second would be directing. And producing is fun too, but acting and directing or acting even more is where my passion's at.

I want to ask a question. I don't know if Jan will. It's from one of our listeners. Are you okay with that, Jan? Yeah. Tracy wrote on the Jan Arden Podcast Facebook page, you and Melissa share sobriety in common. What keeps you both committed to continue to stay sober? There's so much. Yeah.

Golly. Where do you start? Yeah. I personally, I mean, it's kind of, for me, it's really simple. I just want to keep moving forward. I don't want to go backwards anymore. Well said. And I don't want to miss anything. Yeah, that's big. So many things get missed. So many canceled plans. So many...

changing things around. I can't even imagine what it would be like to miss time with the grandkids, you know, because I wasn't present. You're not there anymore. You're here. No. Yeah. You are such an incredible actor, but as a child, there was something so spectacular and so intuitive and so grown up in you. You were like this alien person.

child. You were like a trained, no, I mean that, like just watching you. And I watched Miracle Worker like a week ago to prep for this. I thought I can sit through, I'm going to watch this again because I'd seen it every time it was on TV, I would stop and watch it. Patty Duke, who played your part many years before, which was an interesting part of the story, your relationship with her and telling Helen Keller's story, do you have, was that an intense time?

For you, it's such a spectacular piece of work. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, it was an incredibly intense time. We did it as a play first before we shot the movie. And it was the first time I'd ever been on stage. So to be on stage in that role was a lot. And Anna, Patty, Duke, Anna had done it on stage as well. I mean, she and I developed...

a really strong bond doing that piece together. We really relied on each other. We really had to trust each other because you know that there's that huge fight scene in the dining room in the middle of the movie, which is also in the middle of the play. And it lasts about 10 minutes. I mean, it's 10 to 15 minutes of solid, just physical beating the crap out of each other. And just like with Alison Arngrim and I, you know, it's, it's,

It's one thing to have a trusting relationship with someone you're playing something romantic with. It's an entirely other level to be acting with someone you're beating up physically. You really have to trust each other, that you're not going to hurt each other more.

more than it's called for. And we had a lot of falls and slips and all kinds of stuff doing the play. And we just learned so much. And we were such a team from the get-go. The day we met in my manager's office, we sat down together and we said hello and we hugged and she sat down and she said, so let's start with A.

And she taught me the alphabet, the ASL alphabet right there, A, B, C, D. And we went through the whole alphabet. And that was immediate. And that's how our friendship started. It was so quick. It was such second nature for you, Melissa. Well, and it was just the alphabet. When she's pushing it into your hand, like, no, this is what this is. And the moment when everyone's bawling their heads off, the pumping of the water.

And the hands, the moment of realization, which is kind of metaphorical for acting, I would imagine, when you have those moments when you're doing a play or when you're acting in a movie where you have a moment, that moment when you connect with the part that you're playing. Yep. I would imagine it would be likened to that, aha, this is what I have to do. A hundred percent. Those don't happen a ton, right?

But when they do happen, when you have that, I mean, generally speaking, for me, I can say as an actor, I feel very much in it all the time, but sometimes not.

There's other extenuating circumstances that take you out of your head or take you out of the game or there's distractions, there's things going on. But there are moments where, especially on stage, and you know this, there are moments where you're performing on stage where you're just in the pocket and it just everything is humming in the audiences with you and you're with them. And there's that incredible connection. And

That's what keeps me coming back. Yeah. That's that beautiful, juicy, wonderful core of it. It's just, that's when it's magic. This is a really bizarre kind of question comment more than anything before we go. You were in Calgary years ago to work on a Jackie Collins film. Yeah.

Nigel, my wonderful friend here in England, was Jackie's publicist for many, many years. And I remember him phoning me and saying, Jackie Collins is coming. Melissa Gilbert will be there. There's all these women he was naming and they need a place to stay in Calgary. And where do you think that could be? And so I gave him the name of the hotel, the Sheraton Eau Claire, where you guys all ended up staying. So it's a weird little connection. And I'm like, oh, cool. Melissa Gilbert's here. I mean, obviously this was a hundred years ago.

But he, Nigel said, please tell Melissa that Jackie absolutely adored her. She went off all the time. Jackie's obviously no longer with us, but Jackie Collins thought you were so articulate and elegant and such a great actor. So Jackie Collins just thought the absolute world of you. So the world is very small and that's such a weird connector that I'm

I'm like, oh, put them up at the Sheraton Eau Claire. I think Melissa would really like that. It's by a river and blah, blah, blah. That is so funny. Let me tell you something. Jackie Collins, who I also adored and loved working with, ruined one of my children for me. My youngest son, Michael, lost a tooth while we were there. And he lost it on the set. And he was showing it to all of us. And he said, I'm going to put this under my pillow. And the tooth fairy is going to give me a dollar. And Jackie said, a dollar? Yeah.

Are you nuts? And she handed him a $100 bill. Oh my hell. And from then on, the tooth fairy was broke. Exactly. Exactly.

Like, okay, thanks, Jackie. This child has a lot more teeth that are going to fall out. He was six. This was the first one. So here we go. Thanks, Jackie. Love that lady. What a dame. I'm sure the movie was incredible to work on. It was one of her saucy books coming to life once again. And-

Hollywood Wives, The Next Generation with myself, Farrah Fawcett, and Robin Givens. Jesus H. Christ. Hell yeah. Is there anything we need to know before you leave us that you're working on now to watch for in the next few months? No. Modern Prairie. I mean, you know, there's always something new going on. Check out the website. We've got new products coming. We've got new workshops coming. We're going to post all that stuff online.

All the modern prairie. We're going to post your podcast. So cool. We're going to post every kick-ass thing that you do. I love that. Melissa Gilbert, honestly, I can't thank you enough. You're just, you're very dear and you're just, you really give me hope that women that are our age,

are getting it. We're celebrating ourselves and we're lifting each other up. And you do that all the time. Thanks. Well, it's important. Sarah's young. She's like 35. And I think I'm always like beating her down. You just wait. You're going to have the best 25 years, but you got to get there first. Yeah. 30s are good. 30s are good. 40s are better. 50s have been fantastic. So if it just keeps getting better, I'm really looking forward to what's next. Me too. Yeah.

So much to look forward to. Well, thank you, Melissa. Thank you, ladies. This has been an absolute joy and time has flown. Yeah. I'm going to come and sit on one of those seminars one of these days. Jan Arden is going to be signing up. You should. Jan Arden, I'll be looking for you. I will. I have to say, I think the needle felting one is going to be fun. Even though the emotional seminars are pretty fantastic too. I'm crafty. I'm really... I'm crafty. I mean, give me glue and some newspaper and I...

I'll make you an outfit. Our paper bag princess. Just what I've always wanted.

Look after yourself and enjoy being a grandma and enjoy Chicago and your pups. And thank you for everything. And I'll definitely be stalking you on social media and sending out hellos. Same here. Same here. Thank you. Can't wait to see what you do next. It's just been an absolute pleasure having you with us today. Subscribe to the Jan Arden Podcast.

Give us a review. Give us a few stars. We'd appreciate five. So we're going to pop up on your feed. You can hear us on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. We'll see you next time, everybody. Thanks for listening to We Do. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.