There may have been a bit of Napoleon complex at play. “I could see his manipulation,” she writes.“One day, when we were out in the field, just as we were finishing a scene … his usual peck to Caroline became a lengthy and deeply felt kiss.” At the time, Grassle thought: “Really? You’d really try that?” Whenever Landon’s character was injured on the show, he took it as an opportunity to remove his shirt. In her 2019 book, “ Confessions of a Prairie Bitch,” “Little House” actress Alison Arngrin, who played bratty Nellie Oleson, revealed Landon would go commando under his deliberately tight-fitting breeches. This gave him another opportunity to display his ripped physique. It was no coincidence that, whenever his character suffered an injury, it was usually something like a broken rib as opposed to an arm or leg. “He looked wonderful with his bare torso sweating while he worked,” Grassle admitted in the book Wanting to take the title of most desirable Hollywood star from Burt Reynolds, Michael Landon took every opportunity to show his physique on “Little House on the Prairie.” NBCUniversal via Getty Images 16, of a first-season episode when Landon penned a scene where his character got down and dirty with some hard labor - giving him a chance to remove his shirt. Grassle writes in her memoir, “ Bright Lights, Prairie Dust: Reflections on Life, Loss and Love from Little House’s Ma” (She Writes Press), out Nov.
#BURT REYNOLDS AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT TV#
So, while Reynolds had famously posed (nearly) nude for Cosmopolitan magazine, Landon - who wrote, produced and directed episodes of the TV series, as well as starring in it - would flaunt his muscles at every opportunity on his G-rated show. “Mike was resentful and wanted to take his place.” “In the ’70s, Burt topped the list as the most desirable man in Hollywood,” actress Karen Grassle, who played Caroline “Ma” Ingalls, on “Little House,” told The Post.
The actor-producer, who proudly cast himself as family man “Pa” in the “ Little House on The Prairie” TV series, harbored a secret grudge against the hirsute “Smokey and The Bandit” star. Michael Landon was jealous of one man: Burt Reynolds.