Michael Landon

His co-star on Little House, Melissa Gilbert, named her son, Michael Garrett Boxleitner (1995), after Landon. See also: Other Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood. They married in 1983 and had Jennifer (born in 1983) and Sean (born in 1986). Massey has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for movies at 1719 Vine Street and one for television at 6708 Hollywood Blvd. 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. On July 29, 1983 he died in Los Angeles, California from pneumonia and is buried in New Haven, Connecticut. Landon treated her like his own child and had four more children with Lynn. His brother was Vincent Massey, the first Canadian-born Governor-General of Canada.

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. He has two children who followed him into acting: Anna Massey and Daniel Massey. He adopted her son Mark and together they adopted another boy. Massey became well-known on television in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in his role as Doctor Gillespie in the series Doctor Kildare. His first wife was Dodie Frasier, a legal secretary who was six years his senior. Following the war, he became an American citizen. Landon was married three times. He rejoined the Canadian Army during World War II, and was wounded and invalided out in 1943.

He is buried in a Jewish cemetery. Despite being Canadian, Massey became famous for his quintessential American roles, as Abraham Lincoln in 1940's Abe Lincoln in Illinois (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor), in 1941's Santa Fe Trail, in which he played abolitionist John Brown, and as Lincoln again in 1962's How the West Was Won. A few weeks later, Landon passed away in Malibu, California with his family, children and colleagues by his side. Early in Massey's career, Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926), heard Massey perform and was struck by the close similarity of Massey's speaking voice to that of his father. His last public appereance was on the "Johnny Carson Show" in June. G. Wells' Things to Come. This was meant to be another winning series for Landon, but he was soon diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had spread to the liver. In 1936 he starred in H.

He then went to CBS and in 1991 starred in a two hour pilot called Us. His first movie role was High Treason in 1927, and he played Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band in the following year. Landon had produced all three of his series for NBC, but after ending Highway he was let go. However, drawn to the theater, in 1922 he appeared on the London stage. When his friend and co-star, Victor French, died of lung cancer in 1989, Landon cancelled the series. Severely wounded in action in France, he was sent home where he eventually worked in the family business, selling farm implements. 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. His first stage appearance was in Siberia, where he entertained the American troops who were on occupation duty.

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. At the outbreak of World War I he joined the Canadian Army. Little House would later develop into a television series. He was educated at Upper Canada College, the University of Toronto and at Balliol College, Oxford, England. 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. Born in Toronto, Ontario, he was the son of Hart Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. The show ran for 14 years, from 1959 to 1973, and spanned 461 episodes. Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896 - July 29, 1983) was a Canadian actor.

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.