He Was Not All That He Seemed
Michael Landon rose to fame as the fresh-faced “Little Joe Cartwright” on the hit western series Bonanza. But behind his good guy image on screen was an unscrupulous character, known for stiff-arming his co-stars, cheating on his wives, and blowing things up.
1. He Was Born With Strong Morals
On Halloween night in 1936, Eugene Maurice Orowitz (AKA Michael Landon) made his debut in Forest Hills, New York. As the son of a Jewish father and Roman Catholic mother, he seemed like he would have a good moral compass. In fact, before stardom, his dedication to faith was admirable.
NBC Television, Wikimedia Commons
2. He Pedaled Miles For His Faith
When Landon’s family relocated to Collingswood, New Jersey, young “Eugene” faced a grueling ritual. Every single day, he mounted his bicycle and rode to a neighboring town, determined to master Hebrew prayers for his upcoming bar mitzvah. He learned early on, however, that not everyone would respect his heritage.
NBC Television, Wikimedia Commons
3. He Faced Crushing Social Rejection
Landon would later go on to win the hearts of millions of swooning teens and young women. However, he wasn’t always considered a catch. Throughout high school, he was something of a social pariah. As he later confessed to an interviewer, “no Christian father in the town would allow his daughter to go out with a Jew”.
He had bigger problems at home anyway.
NBC Television, Wikimedia Commons
4. He Was His Mother's Lifeguard
During what should have been a peaceful family beach vacation, Landon witnessed something that would haunt him forever. Without so much as a sound, his mother walked into the ocean, intent on ending her life. Miraculously, Landon sprang into action, plunged into the waves and dragged his mother back to shore, saving her from the depths.
What happened next was even more horrifying.
5. He Carried The Weight Of Her Pain
After pulling his mother from a watery grave, Landon expected tears, apologies, or at least acknowledgment of what had just transpired. Instead, his mother carried on as though nothing had happened. The trauma overwhelmed him so completely that he immediately vomited, calling it “the worst experience of his life”.
It actually caused a physiological response.
NBC, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992)
6. He Was A Bedwetter
Landon’s parents’ marital troubles and his mother’s precarious mental state left an indelible impression on him—and his bed sheets. According to the biography Michael Landon: His Triumph and Tragedy, Landon struggled with bedwetting until he was 12 years old. When Landon spoke publicly about it, he made a shocking revelation.
NBC, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992)
7. He Ate Pickled Herring
Landon didn’t shy away from the leaked secret about his bedwetting. But when he finally spoke publicly about it, he made some interesting confessions. In pursuit of a cure for his bedwetting habit, Landon revealed that he ate “pickled herring and saltines”, hoping it would soak up the contents of his bladder. “When I was growing up in the ‘40s,” he explained, “we didn't have the information available we have today”.
His mother’s cure was even less effective.
NBC, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992)
8. His Mother Embarrassed Him
While pickled herring and saltines didn’t cure Landon of his bedwetting, his mother’s cure probably made it worse. In an embarrassing move to the future star, Landon’s mother hung his wet bed sheets “outside his window”. Every day, he would have to run home before his classmates so they wouldn’t see his yellow shame.
As far as they knew, he was a star athlete.
NBC Television, Wikimedia Commons
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9. He Was Almost An Olympic Athlete
Throughout his high school career, Landon was well on his way to becoming a professional athlete. In 1954, he set the record for the longest javelin throw at 58.93 meters—more than 190 feet! If things had gone a little differently, he might have been bringing home Olympic gold. But fate had another plan.
10. His Injury Ended His Athletic Hopes
Landon’s athletic prowess with a javelin earned him a scholarship to the University of Southern California. However, instead of becoming a varsity legend, an injury derailed his hopes. After he tore the ligaments in his shoulder, Landon was forced to drop out of college. He was about to step into a different kind of sport: Fame.
Silver Screen Collection, Getty Images
11. He Was Close To Fame
With college out of the question, Landon moved to Los Angeles with the hopes of making it in Hollywood. There was just one problem: He had no show business credentials. However, he knew that, in show business just as in everything else, only three things matter: location, location, location. So, he took up work as an “attendant” across from the Warner Bros studios.
His clever ploy worked.
12. He Picked A Name Out Of The Phone Book
Proximity to fame was all Landon needed. After a short while, a local talent agent spotted Landon and convinced him to forget “Eugene Maurice Orowitz”. After consulting a phone book for a new name, the former javelin-throwing college dropout became “Michael Landon”—and the rest became history. Quickly.
Silver Screen Collection, Getty Images
13. He Landed His First Starring Role
After his phone-book-inspired name change, Landon quickly started landing roles. Ironically, his first major television appearance was in the series Telephone Time. At just 20, Landon played the title character in the episode “The Mystery of Casper Hauser”. It was his next role, however, that really saw him become a star—or a beast.
CBS, Telephone Time (1956–1958)
14. He Made His Big Screen Debut
The following year, in 1957, Landon starred in a monster-flick that would turn him into a household name. Playing the lead role in the film I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Landon made his big screen debut and had teenage girls and young women swooning over his rakish good looks. However, little did they know, he was already taken.
American International Pictures, I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
15. He Was Already Married
Prior to his breakout role in I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Landon had already fallen in love. At just 20 years old, right before his acting career kicked off, Landon married Dodie Levy-Fraser. Little is known about their romance, except that Levy-Fraser had a son from a previous marriage and that the couple adopted another son in 1960.
Taken or not, he was about to make even more hearts swoon.
American International Pictures, I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
16. He Started A Bonanza
A few years after his breakout success, Landon landed the role of a lifetime—a role that would earn him a place in Hollywood history. After a few auditions and much deliberation, NBC cast Landon as “Little Joe Cartwright” in the colorized Western Bonanza. Shockingly, he almost never got the role.
17. He Wasn’t The First Pick
Bonanza producer David Dortort initially didn’t want Landon for the role of Little Joe Cartwright. In fact, he preferred two other actors: Robert Blake and Robert Fuller. However, Dortort’s wife convinced him that Landon would be a star, casting aside doubts about Landon’s youth and relative obscurity to true A-listers.
Still, Landon didn’t quite measure up.
ABC Television, Wikimedia Commons
18. He Didn’t Really Measure Up
Despite his initial reservations, Dortort decided to give the role of the “cocky” and “impish” Little Joe Cartwright to Landon. However, there was one problem: Landon’s height. Or, rather, his lack thereof. To compensate, Landon wore four-inch lifts for the entire series run, even continuing to wear the lifts in his other projects years later.
19. He Was Among Real Stars
Despite his breakout role and success in I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Landon still wasn’t the biggest star on the set of Bonanza. In fact, the cast included all-stars like Lorne Greene (Ben Cartwright), Pernell Roberts (Adam Cartwright), and Dan Blocker (Eric “Hoss” Cartwright). In Landon’s mind, he found the family he wished he had had.
At least he didn’t share their genes.
Silver Screen Collection, Getty Images
20. He Kept All Of His Hair
Landon was the youngest primary cast member of Bonanza when the show aired in 1959. While the age difference was already apparent to audiences, it was even more apparent to those working on set. Funny enough, Landon was the only cast member who didn’t need a hairpiece on set. He did, however, need some work on his hair.
21. He Was Already Going Gray
Unlike his older co-stars, Landon might not have been losing his hair. But, even in his early twenties, he didn’t exactly have the luscious locks of a youthful man. While his co-stars wore hairpieces, Landon had to dye his hair throughout the series run of Bonanza to conceal his prematurely graying curls.
22. He Found His On-Screen Father
Landon’s childhood had been a nightmare, filled with an unstable mother, a philandering father, and embarrassing yellow-stained bed sheets. But on the set of Bonanza, he grew close to his on-screen father, Lorne Greene. Later reports claimed that Landon even saw Greene as the father he had never truly had.
But this TV family was filled with tragedy for Landon.
Larry Bessel, Los Angeles Times, Wikimedia Commons
23. He Cried Whenever He Thought About Blocker
When Landon’s Bonanza co-star Dan Blocker succumbed to a sudden pulmonary embolism, he was utterly devastated. In fact, Landon was so impacted by Blocker’s unexpected demise that, for later roles, whenever he needed to cry, he would simply think of Blocker and the tears would flow like a river.
He was a lot less affectionate when it came to some of his other co-stars.
NBC Television, Wikimedia Commons
24. He Barely Spoke To His Co-Star
Landon wasn’t close with all of his Bonanza co-stars. Infamously, Landon and the others on the set of the hit series struggled to get along with Pernell Roberts. But his relationship with Landon was probably the worst. According to Landon, Roberts barely ever said a word to him outside of his scripted lines when the cameras were rolling.
Despite the tension, the show prospered.
25. He Topped The Nielsen Ratings
By the time Bonanza was in its sixth season, it was a ratings juggernaut that showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, for three years Bonanza was the top-rated show in the Nielsen ratings. And there was one breakout star to thank: Landon.
26. He Was The Fan Favorite
As Bonanza continued to cause a, well, a ratings bonanza, Landon was the show’s clear breakout star. Of all the cast members, Landon received the most fan mail and parlayed his popularity into power. He negotiated with NBC to allow him to write and direct some of the show’s episodes. His personal life, however, was falling apart.
27. His Marriage Ended—In Scandalous Circumstances
Despite his rise to superstardom, Landon managed to keep the details of his marriage to Levy-Fraser out of the headlines. However, the details that leaked out were not flattering. In 1962, after just six years of marriage and only two years after adopting a second son, Landon and Levy-Fraser divorced. The reason for their divorce was scandalous.
28. He Had Bonanza Beauty
While working on Bonanza, Landon had developed something of a reputation as a ladies’ man. So, when an unknown actress named Lynn Noe had an uncredited role in the hit series, it was little surprise that Landon began an affair with her that lasted for years. Eventually, just one year after divorcing Levy-Fraser, Landon married Noe.
His increasingly problematic personal life quickly became an issue on set.
29. He Was Difficult To Work With
With fame, fortune, and femme fatales falling at his feet, Landon’s ego grew too big for the set of Bonanza. Even the show’s producer, David Dortort, couldn’t help but comment on the difficulty of working with Landon in the later seasons. “Nearly every line, every scene, every set up,” Dortort said, “everything would halt for endless story conferences on the set, it got increasingly bitter toward the end”.
There wasn’t enough room on set for Landon’s ego and…well, anyone else.
30. He Didn’t Like His New Co-Star
After Pernell Roberts left Bonanza, NBC went in search of another actor to play a new character that would fill the hole left behind. Eventually, they decided on Guy Williams of Zorro (1957) fame to play the new role of the irresistibly attractive Will Cartwright. Everyone was happy about the decision. Everyone, that is, except for Landon.
31. He Was Too Jealous To Share The Spotlight
After just five episodes, Williams was out—and it had nothing to do with his performance. Allegedly, Landon “refused to work” with Williams—or any other actor for that matter—that he considered to be more attractive or “charismatic” than himself. So, Landon had Wlliams booted from Bonanza out of sheer jealousy.
His good looks alone, however, couldn’t save the show.
32. His Show Finally Ended
By November of 1972, the Bonanza bonanza had fizzled and the show plummeted down the Nielsen ratings. Despite this, a September 1972 two-hour special about Little Joe Cartwright’s wedding became one of TV Guide’s “most memorable specials”. Even so, the final episode of Bonanza aired on January 16, 1973. By that time, Landon had already landed himself another hit series.
NBC, Bonanza (1972 TV Special)
33. He Landed Another Hit Series
Landon didn’t spend much, if any, time in the unemployment lane after Bonanza went off the air. The following year, Landon took on another career-defining role as Charles Ingalls in the Little House on the Prairie. The NBC show would soon become another major ratings hit. And Landon made sure he got the best performances out of his castmates.
NBC, Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983)
34. He Made The Kids Cry
As Charles Ingalls, Landon played the role of a pioneer father. As the father to a growing brood of children of his own, he knew a thing or two about getting the best performances out of his young castmates. To get the kids on set to cry, he would face them with “eyes full of tears” and say, “Do you know how much I love you?”
Apparently not enough to give them a raise
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
35. He Stiff-Armed His Castmates
Legend has it that Landon, as executive producer of Little House on the Prairie, ruled the set with an iron first. A cheap iron fist. When Kevin Hagen, who played Dr Baker on the show, approached Landon for a raise, Landon allegedly told him that he would continue to play the good doctor at his current pay or he would be replaced.
That was the least troubling of his on-set antics.
NBC, Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983)
36. He Worked Hard—And Drank Harder
Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on the Prairie, made shocking revelations in her autobiography, Prairie Tale. She claimed that Landon and other adult crew members drank like sailors on the set. “He was always a hard worker,” Gilbert wrote, “and [a] hard drinker”.
NBC, Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983)
37. He Smoked Like A Chimney
Swigging back bottle after bottle wasn’t Landon’s only vice. In fact, his real weakness was the good old cancer stick. Cast and crew members observed Landon smoking as many as four packs of unfiltered coffin nails every single day. His ashtray? Apparently his glove, which he used to put the cancer sticks out.
Truth be told, he preferred setting fires.
NBC, Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983)
38. He Blew It All Up
When NBC pulled the plug on Little House on the Prairie, Landon had an explosive reaction—literally. According to Landon’s on-screen wife, Karen Grassle (Caroline Ingalls), Landon detonated the famous and pastoral Walnut Grove set to thumb his nose at NBC for cancelling his show. Grassle confessed she “[wished] he hadn’t done that”.
Landon, however, was unapologetic.
NBC, Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983)
39. He Wasn’t Sorry At All
Despite his co-stars calling the move to blow up Walnut Grove “unfortunate”, Landon never apologized. In fact, in a 1984 New York Times interview, he called the explosion “cathartic”. “There were lots of tears when we finally blew up the town,” Landon said. “The actors had all become very attached to their own buildings, so it was very emotional”.
Walnut Grove wasn’t the only thing going up in flames.
NBC, Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983)
40. His Went Back To His Old Ways
By 1980, Landon was repeating old patterns in his personal life. Once again, despite the success of his latest television series (or because of it), Landon’s marriage suffered. This time, after nearly 20 years of marriage and five children later, Landon and Noe went their separate ways, with their divorce becoming final in 1982. The reason for their split was also familiar.
41. He Had A Little Secret On Little House
Apparently no one had told Noe the old adage: You lose them the way you get them. Just as Landon had cheated on his first wife with Noe after meeting her on the set Bonanza, Landon was cheating on Noe with another woman he met on the set of Little House on the Prairie. Starting in 1980, Landon had been carrying on an affair with Little House makeup artist Cindy Clerico. By 1983, the two were married.
It was getting even more difficult for Landon to keep up his good guy reputation.
42. He Was A Vulgar Camera-Hog
When Hall Bartlett, the writer and director of 1982’s Love Is Forever (also called Comeback), cast Landon in his film, he was looking forward to working with the “saintly” Charles Ingalls. However, what Bartlett claimed he got instead was a “camera-hogger” with a “vulgar” vocabulary. Bartlett later called Landon “the biggest liar I've ever met in the picture business”. But at least he was a pretty liar.
43. He Wouldn’t Work With Anyone Prettier
Landon’s next big series was Highway to Heaven—but, once again, his ego took up the whole set. NBC requested a “handsome young actor” for the role of Mark Gordon to star alongside Landon. True to form, however, Landon refused to work with a younger, more attractive actor. Instead, he insisted that NBC rewrite the role of Mark Gordon so that he could cast his middle-aged friend, Victor French.
By that time, karma was catching up with him.
NBC, Highway to Heaven (1984–1989)
44. He Had A Mysterious Headache
Landon was still a young 54 years of age when he went on a ski vacation to Utah in April of 1991. But he wasn’t able to enjoy the slopes the way he wanted to. Suddenly, and seemingly without explanation, Landon began experiencing a “severe headache”. It would take more than ibuprofen to cure what he had.
45. He Received A Terminal Diagnosis
When Landon received his diagnosis three days later, he learned the horrific news. His doctors informed him that he had metastatic pancreatic cancer. The aggressive illness had already spread to the “blood vessels around his pancreas”. Worse yet, the doctors informed him that the cancer was “inoperable and terminal”—the result of years of heavy drinking and smoking.
But he was determined to fight.
46. He Had To Set The Record Straight
Shortly after his diagnosis, Landon appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He dispelled the rumors that had been circulating in the tabloids, but confirmed to the public that he did, in fact, have terminal cancer. Even so, he vowed to fight to the bitter end and asked his fans for their prayers. He seemed to be on the mend.
NBC, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992)
47. He Gave A Tell-All Interview
Less than two weeks after his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Landon ended up in the hospital. A daring, but thankfully successful, operation to remove a blot clot extended Landon’s life and gave him a fighting chance. That summer, he landed on the cover of LIFE magazine and gave a tell-all interview about “life, his family, and his struggle to live”.
Sadly, there wasn’t much to say.
48. He Said Goodbye At Last
Just one month after giving his groundbreaking exclusive interview to LIFE, Landon drew his final breath. At the age of 54, in the early afternoon of July 1, 1991, in Malibu, California, Landon passed on. In the end, he had his third wife, Clerico, at his bedside. The legacy he left behind, however, was full of controversy and contradictions.
49. He Believed In…Something
Years before his passing, Landon had given an interview to the Associated Press that upheld his public image. At once the dough-eyed dreamer from Bonanza and the wholesome father from Little House, Landon said, “I believe in God, I believe in family, I believe in truth between people, I believe in the power of love, I believe that we really are created in God's image, that there is God in all of us”.
But there was another side to Landon—the side that the cameras never saw.
NBC, Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983)
50. His Life Was The Real Bonanza
Landon’s son, Michael Landon Jr, painted a very different picture of his father from the one that audiences had grown to love. In the shocking memoir, Michael Landon, the Father I Knew, Landon Jr revealed his father to be a “serial adulterer with strained family relationships”. Whatever the truth, Landon’s life was the real bonanza.
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