Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert's controversial first kiss with Dean Butler, 23, when she was just 15 was interrupted by her sobbing mother: 'She couldn't bear seeing it' By Terry Zeller and Sonia Horon For Dailymail.Com Published: 00:58 BST, 22 June 2024 | Updated: 00:58 BST, 22 June 2024 e-mail View comments Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert's first onscreen kiss was cut short by her mother. The legendary actress, now 60, who played Laura Ingalls on the 1974-1983 series, was filming a romantic scene with her TV husband Dean Butler, now 67, when her mother, Barbara Abeles, began sobbing near the set.
The emotional outburst led to such a disturbance that Michael Landon, the show’s leading actor and director, had to abruptly halt filming with a shout of 'cut.' 'It was totally unexpected. This kind of outburst just didn’t happen on our set,' Dean writes in his new memoir Prairie Man: My Little House Life & Beyond.
The tears erupted, in part, due to Barbara not approving of Dean's casting as Almanzo Wilder, as he was 23 at the time, while Melissa had just turned 15. Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert's first onscreen kiss was cut short by her mother; pictured 2023 The legendary actress, now 60, who played Laura Ingalls on the 1974-1983 series, was filming a romantic scene with her TV husband Dean Butler, now 67, when her mother, Barbara Abeles, began sobbing near the set 'Her unhappiness culminated, perhaps, in not being able to .
