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Tag: little house on the prairie

  • Melissa Gilbert: ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Star Turns to Politics, Plagued by Back Taxes

    Melissa Gilbert of Little House on the Prairie fame is running for Congress. Will the back taxes she owes stand in her way of getting elected?

    Gilbert is seeking a Michigan congressional seat in 2016, but she owes $470,000 in both state and federal tax liens. A spokesperson for her campaign claims she will have this bill paid in full by 2024.

    “Melissa was caught in a perfect storm of financial difficulty, which is why she initiated an honest conversation with the IRS,” the campaign spokesperson said. “Together they set up a payment plan that will allow her to pay back her federal taxes over approximately 8 1/2 years and her California taxes over approximately 46 months.”

    A $127,752 lien was filed against Gilbert and her former husband in Los Angeles as far back as 2005, according to legal records. Other liens have been filed since then.

    It was Monday when Melissa Gilbert announced she would seek a seat in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District as a Democrat. This is her first run for public office.

    A former president of the Screen Actors Guild, Melissa Gilbert is using this past experience to tout her merits as a member of Congress. She follows a long line of past Guild leaders who have run for public office.

    Melissa Gilbert is running for Congress because she wants to fight for working families.

    “I’m running for Congress to make life a little easier for all the families who feel they have fallen through the cracks in today’s economy. I believe building a new economy is a team effort, and we need to bring fresh voices to the table to get the job done,” she says.

    Melissa Gilbert has spent most of her life in California. She moved to Michigan in 2013.

    Do you think she stands a chance of being elected to Congress? Will those tax liens stand in Melissa Gilbert’s way?

  • Melissa Gilbert Owes IRS $360,000, Which She Blames On Career, Recession and Divorce

    Melissa Gilbert is in trouble with the IRS.

    According to CBS News, the Internal Revenue Service says former Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert failed to pay more than $360,000 in federal income taxes from 2011-2013.

    The Detroit News reports the IRS filed a tax lien against the actress in February because of her failure to pay taxes.

    Melissa Gilbert, 51, blames the 2011-2013 tax debt on the lack of acting opportunities, the economy and her divorce.

    “Like so many people across the nation, the recession hit me hard,” Gilbert said. “That, plus a divorce and a dearth of acting opportunities the last few years, created a perfect storm of financial difficulty for me.”

    Recently, Melissa Gilbert announced that she and her family are moving out of their rented home in Howell, Illinois, although husband Timothy Busfield said the move has nothing to do with the debt.

    “(The debt) has more to do with the housing crash and divorce in the past,” Busfield said. “It’s a product of what happened with the economy. It’s unfortunate and it’s been happening a lot. It’s not a big deal.”

    Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie from 1974-1983 said she has negotiated a payment plan with the IRS.

    “I’ve set up an installment plan to fully pay off my debt and will continue to work as hard as I can to erase this debt and dig myself out of this hole,” said Melissa Gilbert. “I am absolutely positive that I can do it.”

    Most recently, Melissa Gilbert starred alongside Juliette Lewis and Ryan Phillippe in the ABC series Secrets and Lies.

  • Laura Ingalls Wilder Blockbuster Memoir Reveals Darker Side of ‘Little House on the Prairie’

    Laura Ingalls Wilder is remembered by the millions who have read her Little House on the Prairie books as a heroin living in an idyllic world. However, a previously unpublished book reveals a darker side to life on the prairie and is becoming a blockbuster hit for South Dakota Historical Press, the publisher of the memoir.

    Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, edited by Pamela Smith Hill, was released in November by the small state-owned publishing house.

    Laura Ingalls Wilder’s autobiography details her life in the country, but paints a far less idyllic picture of life on the prairie, with tales of domestic abuse, messy love triangles and even a drunk man who apparently lit himself on fire.

    Wilder and her daughter tried publishing the autobiography in the early 1930s, but they were unsuccessful after publishers were less than convinced that anyone would want to read the flip-side of the Ingalls’ family life on the prairie.

    When Laura Ingalls Wilder died in 1957, the original draft was saved at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri, until the South Dakota State Historical Society was finally able to publish the book.

    Between 1932 and 1943, Laura Ingalls Wilder published 11 novels in the Little House on the Prairie series, which were adapted into a 1970s TV show.

    The memoir was the No. 1 best-seller on Amazon.com in late January and was still in the Top 10 on Friday, at No. 6.

  • Melissa Gilbert: ‘A Tale of Two Titties’ Cites Reason for Implant Removal

    Melissa Gilbert has once again defied popular Hollywood trends. The actress who tied the knot while wearing a red dress had her breast implants removed just a couple of days ago.

    The Little House on the Prairie star noted in her blog, A Tale of Two Titties, the impending removal of both breast implants.

    “I am concerned for my health and I don’t like the way they look or feel,” she writes. “Frankly, I’d like to be able to take a Zumba class without the fear that I’ll end up with two black eyes.”

    She had the initial implant surgery when she was in her 20s. Now at 50, she has a whole new perspective.

    Gilbert told People magazine that she got the implants after divorcing her first husband. He made her feel self-conscious about how her breasts looked after breast feeding their baby.

    “Dating posed the terrifying prospect of the guy I chose to make love with next, undoing my bra and running away in abject terror,” she added in her blog.

    She loved the results until she had a second child, and then went for another lift. She proudly showed the results of that surgery off in a low-cut gown at the 2011 SAG Awards.

    “The irony of the fact that I was president of SAG when my breasts were doing the opposite of sagging is not lost on me,” she said.

    Melissa Gilbert even spoke of the insecurity she felt while she was a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, and how she felt the whole experience was bad for her body image.

    “I had spent most of my life pressured to look a certain way and I believed the hype,” she said.

    She has certainly worked through the insecurity, however, and emerged on the other side with an amazing outlook–one that defies Hollywood standards but not her new beliefs.

    “Most of the time, I’m really happy with the way I look. I’m enjoying aging. It’s not going badly either. My sweet husband [Timothy Busfield] is perfectly supportive of my decision to do this. He only wants me to be healthy,” she adds.

    Surgery apparently went well. Melissa Gilbert shared word of its completion via Twitter.

    Kudos to Melissa Gilbert for growing out of her insecurity and becoming confident of her own natural beauty. May her body and soul continue to heal and may she enjoy many years of not only living a (likely) healthier life, but of setting an example for other women that beauty goes far deeper than a pair of breast implants.

  • Laura Ingalls Wilder Autobiography Due Monday

    Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House series of short stories that loosely inspired plotlines of the popular television series Little House on the Prairie, will have her memoirs posthumously published Monday.

    The South Dakota State Historical Society Press is releasing Prairie Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, which Wilder unsuccessfully tried to have published before the Little House on the Prairie NBC series debuted in 1974.

    The television hit starring Michael Landon was based off of Wilder’s series of Little House children’s books, though the autobiography takes a more adult-oriented tone.

    Prairie Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, which was edited by Pamela Smith Hill, contains accounts that inspired Wilder’s more personal writing. It includes annotations, images, appendices and maps that describe the hardships of frontier living. The tales include forthright accounts of domestic abuse, love triangles gone wrong and a man who lit himself afire while intoxicated.

    Fans of ABC’s cult hit LOST might realize that all rogues, cads, hapless knaves and men without scruples are naturally captivated by the life-lessons that can be gleaned from watching reruns of Little House:

    Actress Melissa Gilbert played Wilder on Little House on the Prairie, which ran from 1974 to 1984. The series, which was set in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, explored a myriad of social intricacies. Alcoholism, racism, adoption, drug addiction, cancer, rape and blindness were exhibited during the decade-long run of the show.

    Here is a clip:

    Wilder, 1867-1957, got her start in writing after being invited to submit an article to the Missouri Ruralist in 1911, which led to a permanent position as a writer and editor with that publication.

    The Stock Market Crash of 1929 decimated Wilder’s savings, though she and her husband still had the deed a 200 acre farm they couldn’t realistically afford to maintain. In hopes of generating more income, Wilder began writing her Little House series, with encouragement from her daughter Rose.

    The book is priced at $39.95, and will be available in bookstores, online and directly from the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.