Leslie Landon Matthews, daughter of Michael Landon, spoke about the late actor's battle with pancreatic cancer. Dean Butler struggled with anxiety after discovering that he would be giving his co-star, 15-year-old Melissa Gilbert, her first kiss – both on-screen and in real life. The actor, who played Almanzo Wilder in "Little House on the Prairie," has written a new memoir, "Prairie Man," which details his rise to stardom and the age-gap scene that still raises eyebrows today.
"You just couldn’t do it today," the 68-year-old told Fox News Digital. "There would be way too much blowback. It’s remarkable that we didn’t get more blowback than we did.
. . .
But I think it was handled so tastefully that people . . .
forgot about the age difference." ‘LITTLE HOUSE’ STAR MICHAEL LANDON WAS STUBBORN, AVOIDED DOCTORS AHEAD OF FATAL CANCER DIAGNOSIS: DAUGHTER Dean Butler was 23 when he was cast to play Melissa Gilbert's love interest. She was 15.
(NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images ) "I think the audience had been watching Melissa for years and loved her incredibly," Butler shared. "They wanted to see when she, so honestly and innocently, declared her love for this young man. She fell in love from the first time she laid eyes on him.
The audience was prepared to go right along with that." Butler was 23 when he was cast in the popular TV show, which aired from 1974 to 1983. Gilbert, who starred as Laura Ingalls , was "a young 15.
" Dean Butler gave Melissa Gilbert .
