Michael Landon

His co-star on Little House, Melissa Gilbert, named her son, Michael Garrett Boxleitner (1995), after Landon. He also had a daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, with his longtime mistress, the actress Catherine Deneuve; both were at his bedside when he died of pancreatic cancer. They married in 1983 and had Jennifer (born in 1983) and Sean (born in 1986). Mastroianni was married to the Italian actress Flora Carabella (1926-1999), who appeared in many films including "Lunatics and Lovers" and "A Night Full of Rain", from 1948 until his death; they had one child, Barbara. 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. He followed that with another signature role, that of a frustrated, womanizing film director in Fellini's 8˝. Landon treated her like his own child and had four more children with Lynn. He soon became a major international romantic star, starring in Big Deal on Madonna Street; and especially when Federico Fellini cast him in La Dolce Vita with Anita Ekberg in 1960.

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. His film debut was in I Miserabili (from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables) in 1947. He adopted her son Mark and together they adopted another boy. In 1945 he started working for a film company, and began taking acting lessons. His first wife was Dodie Frasier, a legal secretary who was six years his senior. During World War II he was interned in a Nazi prison, but he escaped and hid in Venice. Landon was married three times. Born in Fontana Liri, a small village in the Apennines, Mastroianni grew up in Turin and Rome.

He is buried in a Jewish cemetery. Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni (September 28, 1924 – December 19, 1996) was an Italian film actor. A few weeks later, Landon passed away in Malibu, California with his family, children and colleagues by his side. 1963 - Best Actor - Divorce, Italian Style. His last public appereance was on the "Johnny Carson Show" in June. 1978 - Best Actor - A Special Day. This was meant to be another winning series for Landon, but he was soon diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had spread to the liver. 1988 - Best Actor - Dark Eyes.

He then went to CBS and in 1991 starred in a two hour pilot called Us. Landon had produced all three of his series for NBC, but after ending Highway he was let go. When his friend and co-star, Victor French, died of lung cancer in 1989, Landon cancelled the series. 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.

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.