Jeffrey Hunter

Hunter's two previous marriages included actress Barbara Rush in the early 1950s. His co-star on Little House, Melissa Gilbert, named her son, Michael Garrett Boxleitner (1995), after Landon. He died the following day from his injuries. They married in 1983 and had Jennifer (born in 1983) and Sean (born in 1986). In May 1969, shortly after marrying actress Emily McLaughlin, he suffered a cerebrovascular accident while at home, causing a fall and a skull fracture. This marriage was believed to be very happy and different from typical "Hollywood marriages", so the tabloids jumped at the affair Landon started with a make-up artist and stand-in for one of the stars he had met at the set of "Little House on the Prairie", Cindy Clerico, who was 21 years younger than he. With the demise of the studio contract system in the early 1960s and the out-sourcing of much feature production, Hunter like many other leading men of the 1950s had to find work in B-pictures produced in Europe, Hong Kong, and Mexico, with the occasional television guest part in Hollywood. Landon treated her like his own child and had four more children with Lynn.

But Hunter was soon filming the pilot for yet another NBC series, the espionage thriller Journey Into Fear, which the network failed to pick up and a motion picture called Brainstorm (1965). A few years later he divorced Dodie to marry (Marjorie) Lynn Noe, a model in 1962 who had a little daughter from a previous marriage. Although Temple Houston did not survive its first season, NBC offered him the lead role of Captain Christopher Pike in the pilot episode (The Cage) of a new science fiction series, Star Trek. His pensive take on the role was in contrast to the more idiosyncratic style of William Shatner, who took the part after Hunter, deciding to concentrate on motion pictures, declined to film a second Star Trek pilot requested by NBC in 1965. He adopted her son Mark and together they adopted another boy. that included starring as a circuit-riding Texas lawyer in the NBC series Temple Houston (1963-64), which Hunter's production company co-produced. His first wife was Dodie Frasier, a legal secretary who was six years his senior. Having guest starred on television dramas since the mid-1950s, Hunter was now offered a two-year contract by Warner Bros. Landon was married three times.

Among an all-star cast in the World War II battle epic The Longest Day (1962), he provided the climactic heroic act of breaching the defense wall atop Normandy's Omaha Beach. He is buried in a Jewish cemetery. Ford also recommended Hunter to director Nicholas Ray for the role of Jesus in the biblical King of Kings (1961), a difficult part met by critical reaction that ranged from praise to ridicule. A few weeks later, Landon passed away in Malibu, California with his family, children and colleagues by his side. A loan-out to co-star with John Wayne in the title roles of the now-classic western The Searchers (1956) began the first of three pictures he made with director John Ford, followed by The Last Hurrah (1958) and Sergeant Rutledge (1960). His last public appereance was on the "Johnny Carson Show" in June. Hunter's handsome looks and gentle manner recalled two earlier Fox stars, Tyrone Power and the young Henry Fonda. This was meant to be another winning series for Landon, but he was soon diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had spread to the liver.

He made his Hollywood debut in Fourteen Hours (1951), had star billing by Red Skies of Montana (1952), and first billing in Sailor of the King (1953). He then went to CBS and in 1991 starred in a two hour pilot called Us. In 1950, while a graduate student in radio at the University of California, Los Angeles and appearing in a college play, he was spotted by talent scouts and offered a two-year motion picture contract by 20th Century Fox that was eventually extended to 1959. Landon had produced all three of his series for NBC, but after ending Highway he was let go. He served stateside in the United States Navy in World War II, then studied drama at Northwestern University. When his friend and co-star, Victor French, died of lung cancer in 1989, Landon cancelled the series. He was born Henry Herman McKinnies, Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he began acting in local theater and radio in his early teens. In 1984 he began his role in Highway to Heaven as Jonathan Smith, an angel who tried to save people by helping them turn their lives around.

Jeffrey Hunter (November 25, 1926 - May 27, 1969) was a film and television actor. He not only starred in the show as the patriarch Charles Ingalls, but served as the producer, writer, director and executive producer. He served mostly in these capacities for the series' eight years, which ended in 1982. Little House would later develop into a television series. Soon after the cancellation of Bonanza, Landon started a new project in 1974, a television film called Little House on the Prairie based on the popular book by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The show ran for 14 years, from 1959 to 1973, and spanned 461 episodes.

Late in the series, Landon asked for the direct and got permission to direct a few episodes of the series. That same year he started starring in the then-new TV series Bonanza as "Little Joe." The youngest brother in the Cartwright family and always a ladies man, he quickly became one of the show's most beloved characters. He also gained exposure as Tom Dooley in the western The Legend of Tom Dooley (1959). Landon's first big part was as Tony Rivers in I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957).

He decided on the name by picking it out of a Los Angeles phone book. At this point he started taking small roles and bit parts, but decided his birth name was not appropriate for an aspiring actor and changed his name to Michael Landon. He earned a scholarship to UCLA, but could no longer attend after tearing a ligament in his arm. In high school, Landon excelled at track, especially with the javelin.

Landon also directed the last two series. In the 1970s and into the 1980s he starred as Charles Ingalls in Little House On The Prairie and starred in Highway to Heaven as an angel, also in the 1980s. In the 1960s he starred as "Little Joe" on Bonanza. Landon was best known for his starring roles in three TV series spanning three decades.

Landon considered himself Jewish. Landon's father was Jewish, his mother was not. Michael Landon (October 31, 1936 - July 1, 1991), born Eugene Maurice Horowitz, was an American actor and director.