Little House on the Prairie star Jennifer Donati revealed that she was the most protected and pampered cast member on set, while other actors had to suffer in the intense California heat.
The cast reunited on The Patrick LabyorSheaux podcast and reminisced about the arid conditions they endured during filming, with Jennifer quipping that she never had to worry about the heat as she was “like three months, two months old” at the time.
Jennifer portrayed Baby Rose Wilder, daughter of Laura Ingalls-Wilder and Almanzo Wilder, in the show’s eighth and ninth seasons. She shared the role with her late sister, Sarah, who passed away at the age of nine.
“I think I was the most pampered cast member there. They didn’t let me get hot,” Jennifer said on the show. Patrick pointed out that it was “kind of a lifesaving thing for the baby,” before adding, “You can’t let the baby get hot.”
Little House was filmed in Simi Valley, California, and actors would often faint on the set due to the intense heat. “You know how people say the first day of spring [is] when you see a robin? First day of summer is when Alison hits the ground because I was out like that,” recalled Alison Arngrim, who portrayed Nellie Oleson. “It was that hot.”
“It was so hot that they would have these buckets of ice water and sea breeze so that you could dip some sort of cloth in and put it around your neck,” she added.
© InstagramPamela Roylance, who played Sarah Carter, shared an anecdote about how the show’s director, producer, writer and star, Michael Landon, helped her deal with the heat. “I remember we were doing ‘Sins of the Fathers.’ And it was just miserable, hot, and I was supposed to be outside in the back hanging up clothing on the line,” Pamela said.
“And Michael let me unbutton the blouse, and he let me roll up my sleeves, which kind of just wasn’t done, but it’s in the shot. You can see it in the episode, and I was so grateful for that.”
© Getty ImagesJennifer was a newborn when she and her sister began working on the show. “Our first call was to go meet Michael Landon, and then we got the part…we started at seven weeks old, we were babies the entire time,” she said on the That’s Classic! podcast.
The duo’s acting career ended when the show did in 1983, as their mother decided they wouldn’t appear in the subsequent films due to the demanding nature of the work. Instead, Jennifer and Sarah were replaced by Jennifer and Michelle Steffin. Sarah then passed away when they were nine.
© InstagramJennifer revealed that she found it difficult to come to terms with her sister’s passing. “When she died, I didn’t fully process it. Being a twin means that you’re always sharing the spotlight with someone else…it’s never just you,” she said.
“It took a few years before it finally hit me, going into junior high and high school and realizing how much different life would’ve been had she been there, for the better or for the worse.”
Read the full article here
