Michael Landon

His co-star on Little House, Melissa Gilbert, named her son, Michael Garrett Boxleitner (1995), after Landon. He was previously married to actress Jennifer Leak. They married in 1983 and had Jennifer (born in 1983) and Sean (born in 1986). Matheson is married to Megan Murphy Matheson, with whom he has three children. 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. Matheson appeared in the movie Van Wilder in 2002, playing the father of the title character who was inspired by his own character in Animal House 24 years earlier. Landon treated her like his own child and had four more children with Lynn. They were unable to reverse the decline and sold it in 1991.

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. Matheson, along with partner Dan Grodnik, bought National Lampoon in 1989 when the magazine was facing financial decline. He adopted her son Mark and together they adopted another boy. He has also directed episodes of Third Watch, Ed, The Twilight Zone, Cold Case, and Without a Trace. His first wife was Dodie Frasier, a legal secretary who was six years his senior. More recently, he guest-starred as Vice President John Hoynes on The West Wing. Landon was married three times. Beginning his acting career as a child, Matheson provided the voice of Jonny Quest in the original series of that name before going on to act in over a hundred film and television projects.

He is buried in a Jewish cemetery. Although perhaps best known for his portrayal of the smooth talking, sex-obsessed Otter in the 1978 comedy Animal House, Matheson's career spans five decades, many genres, and several facets of the entertainment industry. A few weeks later, Landon passed away in Malibu, California with his family, children and colleagues by his side. Tim Matheson, an American actor, was born Tim Matthieson on December 31, 1947, in Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. His last public appereance was on the "Johnny Carson Show" in June. 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 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.