Back to the Prairie and Moving Forward with Melissa Gilbert

Melissa Gilbert

https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/9yzcyw/melissa_final_-_5_9_22_204_PM88qwm.mp3

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Actress, author, mother of children and chickens; Melissa Gilbert’s career has held many titles over the years. From gracing our screen on Little House on the Prairie to taking us through her pandemic experience in her latest novel, Back to the Prairie, Melissa’s incredible work has and continues to keep audiences entertained and inspired. In today’s episode, we sat down with Melissa to discuss the inspiration behind her newest book, her journey to finding her home, reflecting during the pandemic, and the importance of self-care and acceptance as we age.

First, we asked Melissa what inspired her to want to write Back to the Prairie. She told us that initially, the book wasn’t her idea. During the pandemic, she found herself more active on social media and posting content about her life. She started reflecting in her posts about how her life now in her new home seemed to mirror experiences from her show Little House on the Prairie. After seeing her posts, CBS This Morning reached out to her, wanting to do a story on how she’s living more like her Little House on the Prairie character. Melissa also received a message from her literary agent, who was adamant that her current life situation would make a great story. After partnering with Simon and Schuster and starting writing, she ended up creating what would become Back to the Prairie. We also asked Melissa about the journey of buying and renovating her new house with her husband, Tim. She said that before they’d even considered where they wanted to live, both Melissa and Tim agreed that they wanted to get out of New York. They wanted to be somewhere quieter, a more peaceful area away from the chaos of the city. And after Tim took a sum of his director’s guild pension, they were able to start looking for houses to buy and renovate. For Melissa, it was important that she found a place that she could work on herself. While she’d always had a say in renovations on previous houses, someone else had been there to do the work for her. She loved that with her current house, she and Tim could be a team and create the home of their dreams together. Especially since Melissa has always enjoyed putting things together herself, ever since her children were young. She even shared a funny story where one Christmas eve, after finding the power rangers toy her son had been begging for, Melissa stayed up from 10 P.M. to 6 A.M. assembling it, only to then start opening presents with her children minutes after.

The pandemic was a time of solace and deep reflection for Melissa, and she told us that one of the biggest things she realized about herself was self-sabotage. She realized that to both herself and her partners, she was downplaying her accomplishments in order to make others feel better.

It took being in her 40s and having more time to herself for her to acknowledge the behavior and strive to change it. She was the president of a union; her accomplishments were a big deal and deserved to be treated as such. Now, with her husband Tim, Melissa finally feels that sense of support from not only herself but her partner, who pushes her to be her best self. Another aspect of her life Melissa reflected on during the pandemic was her own privilege. While she’d always considered herself to be an empathetic person towards others, when social and racial issues started becoming more prevalent during lockdown, she saw how uninformed she actually was on many problems. She realized that she not only had to be an ally but had to educate herself to help strive for change. Melissa took time to reflect on her privilege and how she may have been enabling bad behaviors and is now an advocate for speaking out on injustice. While she has run for office in the past, Melissa does not plan on returning to larger politics. Instead, she’d rather stay in her community, where she can interact with people and help fight for change.

When asked about her thoughts on self-care in midlife, Melissa said that she prioritizes sleep above all else. She needs at least eight hours a night, and part of achieving that is listening to her body and its needs. As midlife women, Melissa believes we need to embrace who we are and what we need on a specific day, whether that means resting more, eating more, or engaging in self-care. We also need to realize that we’ve earned our opinions and the right to express them, especially when it comes to menopause and advertising. Advertisers have yet to realize what a large market menopausal women truly are, and that by making products targeted towards midlife women, they’d be making more of a profit. While it can be frustrating to be dismissed or underestimated, Melissa said she enjoys being a midlife secret agent. It’s amusing to see someone doubt her due to her age, only for her to turn around and show just how capable she really is.

For her own experience with menopause, Melissa told us that her main issues were hot flashes, sweats, and facial hair growth. At first, when having hot flashes, she’d start having increased anxiety with them. Thinking she was having anxiety attacks, she went to the doctor, only to then be told she was actually perimenopausal. She decided not to receive any treatments for her symptoms, and eventually was able to get past them and felt better after menopause. Along with side effects, menopause also started changing Melissa’s body. Coming out of Dancing with the Stars, Melissa was hypercritical of her appearance. Spray tans, hair extensions, smaller costumes; she felt the need to do whatever it took to look younger. She even had a partner who hated that she wore glasses, making her self-conscious. However, Melissa eventually realized that she needed to start feeling more comfortable in her skin. She was going to continue aging, so she might as well like the person she is. While self-love is a journey with ups and downs, Melissa is far more content with her body and looks now and hopes other midlife women can feel the same about themselves.

Finally, we asked Melissa about what she hopes for the future of her career. She detailed how along with a few secret projects she’s trying to get going, she is also in conversations about launching a lifestyle line. The line is entirely run by women with all female artisans, and they would likely launch with crafting products first. Melissa also has several signings and fundraisers lined up to promote Back to the Prairie.

Melissa Gilbert

Melissa was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 8, 1964. She is the adopted daughter of actor Paul Gilbert and actress/dancer Barbara Crane (now Barbara Gilbert Cowan); her biological parents each had three children from previous marriages and, fearing they wouldn’t be able to provide for Gilbert financially, put her up for adoption the day she was born. Gilbert’s two siblings are also actors; Sara played Darlene in the series Roseanne and Jonathan played Willie Olson on Little House on the Prairie.

While Melissa Gilbert has made several feature film appearances, the majority of her work over the years has been in television. She most often opted for roles as suffering, historically significant teenagers, such as in The Miracle Worker in 1979, The Diary of Anne Frank in 1980 and Splendor in the Grass in 1981. She remained prolific and eventually graduated to adult roles, including Choices in 1986 and A Family of Strangers in 1993. In 2001, Gilbert was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild. She won a second two-year term in 2003.

Returning to television, Gilbert had a role in the 2011 movie The Christmas Pageant. She then branched out in a new direction, signing on to compete on Dancing with the Stars in 2012. Partnered with Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Gilbert went up against television personality Sherri Shepherd, singer Gladys Knight and tennis great Martina Navratilova for the top prize.

During her teen years, Gilbert dated actors Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe. In 1988, she married actor and producer Bo Brinkman. They had one son, Dakota Paul (Cody), and later divorced. In 1995, she married actor Bruce Boxleitner. They had one son together, Michael Garrett, who was born in 1995 and named after the late actor Michael Landon. Gilbert filed for divorce from Boxleitner in 2011.On April 24, 2013, Gilbert married 55-year-old actor Timothy Busfield, known for his role as Eliot Weston on TV’s Thirtysomething. The couple reportedly wed in a private ceremony at San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, California. Busfield, who was married twice previously, has three children from past relationships.