Melissa Gilbert dishes about the men in her life in her new
book, Prairie Tale: A Memoir
Actress Melissa Gilbert, best known for her 9-year role as Laura Ingalls on the TV show "Little House on the Prairie" will be signing copies of her new book, Prairie Tale: A Memoir, at the Grove location of the Barnes and Noble store in Los Angeles on Monday, June 15.
As a young Hollywood starlet, Melissa was surrounded by famous men, having briefly dated Tom Cruise and Billy Idol, and partying with young actors like Charlie Sheen, Sean Penn, Matt Dillon and Michael J. Fox. However, it was her notorious six-year romance with Rob Lowe that provided many ups and downs and ultimately led to heartbreak.
In Prairie Tale: A Memoir, Gilbert reveals that in 1987 while engaged to Lowe she discovered she was pregnant. As a result, Lowe broke off the relationship claiming he wasn't ready for fatherhood. A devastated Gilbert then had to decide whether to go through with the pregnancy. Fate took over and she ended up having a miscarriage.
Although she seemed like America's Sweetheart onscreen, her life was far from perfect offscreen. She experimented with drugs and suffered from alcohol addiction. In her first marriage to actor Bo Brinkman from 1988-1992, she suffered verbal abuse from him due to his alcoholism. She had her first son, Dakota, with Brinkman.
Gilbert had a very close relationship with Michael Landon who played her father on Little House on the Prairie and acted as a father figure offscreen. She was devastated when Landon died from cancer in 1991. She became deeply depressed, but somehow managed to deliver one of the eulogies at his funeral. She named her second son (with second husband, Bruce Boxleitner), Michael, after Landon.
Gilbert was set-up with her second husband, Bruce Boxleitner, by his ex-wife. Their first public appearance as a couple was at the film premiere for Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula in 1992. They were married in 1995. To her surprise, after she married Boxleitner, Gilbert discovered she was the object of a romantic crush from both Kiefer Sutherland and George Clooney!
Gilbert has starred in many TV movies over the years and she served two terms as President of the Screen Actors Guild. She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Children's Hospice. By the summer of 2008, she admitted to having reached three years of solid sobriety.
In 2008, Gilbert starred in a theatrical stage version of Little House on the Prairie at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theatre.
For more info, visit Melissa Gilbert's official website
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