Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated

[rachelmanija]

I am not a true fan of the Little House on the Prairie TV show. I've enjoyed the episodes I've seen, but I've only ever seen about five of them. (I do love the books, despite their problematic - to say the least - nature.) But when I went to a Little House convention with a friend who is a true fan, I got to hear Alison Arngrim speak, and instantly knew I had to read her memoir. Here she is watching a film of the play Peter Pan on TV as a child:

My favorite number was the bizarre sequence where Captain Hook and Peter Pan chase each other around a large papier-mache tree, singing "Oh, Mysterious Lady." A grown-up, somewhat older woman, pretending to be a young boy pretending to be a grown-up, younger glamorous woman by doing not much more than prancing around with a green scarf over her head and singing in a very high register, yet the guy in the pirate suit believes her. Wow. To me it was proof that grown-ups really are insane. And so began the launch of two major themes in my life: my love for and fascination with villains of all kinds, and my total lack of respect for traditional definitions of gender.

If you're not familiar with the TV show Little House on the Prairie, it was only loosely based on the books (same characters, mostly different stories), was a smash hit that aired for NINE YEARS, and starred Michael Landon as Pa, a sensitive sex symbol who often went shirtless and, Arngrim informs us, always went commando under his very tight jeans. Arngrim was a child actress who played Nellie Oleson, rich bitch and rival to the heroine, Laura Ingalls.

Arngrim was raised in a Hollywood family. Her mother was the voice of Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Her father, who was also her agent, was not-so-secretly gay. Her older brother Stefan played sad-eyed orphans. He was also a mentally disturbed sadist who beat and raped her on a regular basis. Since her parents brushed off her attempts to tell them, she decided she needed to move out to get away from him, and to move out she needed money, and to get money she needed a job, and acting was the only well-paid job a child could have, so she took up acting. She was eleven.

She was soon cast in Little House on the Prairie, where she found the family she didn't have at home. Her on-show enemy Melissa Gilbert became her best friend and the adults on the show were kind to her, with allowances for insanely dangerous stunts, long hours in extreme heat, and a painful blonde wig. But what she didn't see coming was the repercussions of becoming incredibly famous for being a villain...

Arngrim is very, very funny, and has a gift for the details that tell. She's also unflinching about the abuse she endured, and how incest was basically legal at the time: penalties for raping a child were minimal, and if the child was a family member, it was only a misdemeanor. As an adult, she campaigned to make child sexual abuse a felony, regardless of whether the child was a relative. She also did a lot of work raising AIDS awareness after her on-show husband contracted HIV.

Alison Arngrim seems like a really good person who's also funny, sharp, and down-to-earth. Unlike many stars who get typecast, she embraces the role of Nellie and everything it brought her, good and bad alike (but mostly good). I loved her memoir and highly recommend it if you can deal with reading about child abuse. If you liked I'm Glad My Mom Died, you'll definitely like this.

I listened to it on audio, and I recommend this method. She's a stand-up comedian, and her voice and impeccable timing adds a lot. Her imitation of Melissa Gilbert alone is worth getting the audio.

Comments

[sartorias]

I read and loved the book when it came out, but I think I'd like to listen to it.

[rachelmanija]

The audio is fantastic.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, nice! I had seen this and been mildly intrigued (because Little House fan) but never gotten as far as downloading the sample (because anti-fan of the show). I will check it out!

[rachelmanija]

I don't think you need to be a fan of the show.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm only in the sample, and this book is already *amazing*.

[rachelmanija]

Yesss.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Finished. I officially love that woman, and I'm so glad this book exists. Thank you for your review!

[rachelmanija]

AWESOME. So glad you enjoyed it!

[ioplokon]

She also tours and does standup in France (in French), where I think she's reasonably popular.

[rachelmanija]

Yes! She talks about that. They love her in France.

[osprey_archer]

I read this book when it came out, and that part really stuck with me. The French love Nellie Oleson! Fascinating. Does she explain why? If she did, I can't remember.

[rachelmanija]

The French understood that she was mean because she was jealous of Laura's family.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, that's fascinating. That never occurred to me as an explanation for her behavior, but I'm much more familiar with the books than the TV show, so maybe that's a clearer motivation in the show.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I literally laughed out loud at the way Arngrim explains this in the book:

Finally, one of the actors made an impassioned speech that began with something like “Nellie, who was a child without a smile…” and everyone went “Ahhh!” The audience applauded wildly. They had analyzed Nellie’s situation and agreed she was a poor, unhappy, friendless little thing. It was as if they had just put Nellie on trial on national television and determined that her actions against Laura were motivated by jealousy, making them crimes of passion and therefore forgivable under French law.

[rachelmanija]

That cracked me up. I was so delighted at her reception in France.

[mildred_of_midgard]

This is the *only* time you've said "get the audio version" and I've actually been tempted to get the audio version. The thing keeping me from getting the audio version is the fact that there's a <1% chance I will actually listen to it; I'm way behind on the 2 podcasts I actually want and need to listen to on audio, and if I can't even make myself stick with that...an audio version of a book I've already read is almost certainly a waste of money for my audio-hating self. But that doesn't stop me from being tempted!

[rachelmanija]

I wish I could send excerpts of just her imitating Melissa Gilbert.

[pauraque]

I started to type that this reminds me of what Wil Wheaton's written about his experiences as an abused child who felt forced go into acting and ended up playing a famously hated character (but at least his TV family loved him) but I suspect that a depressing amount of that story is true for many, many child actors.

[rachelmanija]

I hadn't known Wil Wheaton had been abused as a child. Poor kid!

[princessofgeeks]

Wow!

[asakiyume]

Wow, I am so glad she did find a family through her work. How soon was she able to escape her biological family?

[rachelmanija]

Late teens.

[minoanmiss]

My nine year old self's mind is BLOWN (fan of the TV show here -- I think I viewed it as low fantasy rather than anything historical). Also I really need to read "I'm glad my mom is dead".

[lokifan]

Oh wow - Prairie is basically a mystery to me, probably because I'm English, but that does sound great!

[rachelmanija]

I don't think you need to know anything about it - Arngrim gives you all the background you need.

[naomikritzer]

I loved this book. The two details that have stuck with me (I read this book years ago): the fact that she and Melissa Gilbert were sufficiently close that the physical fights between Nellie and Laura were unchoreographed and they were just instructed to do a fight, because they would have a fantastic time play-wrestling in the mud and were extremely good at not actually hurting each other. And, the story about how someone on the show tried to undermine Allison by spreading a rumor among the other child actors that she really was as mean as her character, and Melissa Gilbert, herself a young teen, took care of this by inviting the girls with bit parts to come have nice lunches with her and Allison so they could all get to know Allison and see for themselves that she was a totally delightful, funny, polite girl and not Nellie, and Allison wryly observes that this foreshadows Melissa's later job as the president of the Screen Actor's Guild!

[rachelmanija]

Those were two of my favorite anecdotes. Also peeing in their wetsuits. Everything involving Melissa Gilbert was gold.

Incidentally, I am two degrees of separation from Melissa Gilbert, and so three degrees from Alison Arngrim. Melissa's husband Timothy Busfield's younger brother Buck is a Baba-lover and I've met him a few times. (I remember nothing about him.)