arts & life

celebrities

Ms.

Gilbert

Goes To

Michigan

Get the scoop on

Melissa Gilbert —

Brighton resident

and political

hopeful.

Nate Bloom

I Contributing Writer

ctress Melissa Gilbert,
51, announced on
Aug. 10 that she is
running for U.S. House repre-
sentative from the 8th District
of Michigan. A Democrat,
Gilbert seeks to unseat
Republican incumbent Mike
Bishop, who was first elected to
the House in 2014.
The district, which includes
northern Oakland County and all
of Ingham and Livingston coun-
ties, leans Republican and Gilbert
has to fight an uphill race: The
8th has not elected a Democrat
since current U.S. Sen. Debbie
Stabenow gave up the seat in
2001. Since then, redistricting
has put more Republican voters
in the district.
It may seem surprising that a
California actress, best known
for her youthful role as Laura
Ingalls Wilder in the long-

A

running family western, Little
House on the Prairie, is now
living in Michigan and running
for Congress. However, there
is almost nothing usual about
Gilbert's life history, including
her Jewish background.
Gilbert was born in Los
Angeles to working-class, non-
Jewish parents. The couple had
recently split from their respec-
tive spouses and took children
from each marriage into their
new home. They couldn't afford
another child and Melissa was
put up for adoption.
The infant was adopted
right after birth, in 1964, by
Barbara Crane Gilbert, now 77,
and her then-husband, actor
Paul Gilbert. Barbara, who is
Jewish, is the daughter of Harry
"Hesch" Crane (1914-1999),
a former Borscht Belt come-
dian who became a top com-
edy writer and co-created The
Honeymooners. Barbara was an
aspiring actress when she broke

an engagement to Don Rickles
and, in 1962, married Paul
Gilbert, an Irish-American,
much-married actor who was
20 years her senior.
It was natural, in the family's
showbiz milieu, for Barbara to
try and get Melissa into show-
biz, and Melissa did a lot of
commercials before auditioning
for Little House in 1974.
Melissa writes in her 2009
autobiography, A Prairie Tale,
that her grandfather Harry,
who she was close to, was then
riding high as the chief writer
for The Dean Martin Show, and
he probably made some calls
before Melissa's audition — tell-
ing folks "to treat my grand-
daughter right."
Melissa got the part and the
show was a smash hit, running
until 1983.
In her "spare time," Melissa
was nominated for an Emmy in
1979 for playing Helen Keller
in a TV version of The Miracle

Worker; she also played Anne
Frank in a 1980 TV version of

The Diary of Anne Frank.
In Prairie Tale, Melissa says
that while her family celebrated
some Jewish holidays, she had
no formal religious training.
She calls herself "Jew-ISH"
in the book because she dis-
covered, as an adult, that her
mother never had her formally
converted to Judaism as an
infant or small child.
Melissa's parents split up
in 1972 and Barbara married
attorney Harold Abeles in 1974;
their biological daughter, Sara,
was born in 1975. Born Sara
Abeles, she took the stage name
Sara Gilbert when she followed
her half-sister, Melissa, into
acting.
Gilbert's acting career since
Little House ended fared bet-
ter than most tween-age stars,
but it was largely limited to TV

GILBERT on page 63

August 27 • 2015

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