Media Path Podcast Little House Confessions & Turning Adversity Into Advocacy
An iconic TV character is immortal. That truth has become increasingly official in today’s digital age where every episode is but a click away. And as Alison Arngrim has well learned, if you played the villain, folks are still pissed. Alison’s portrayal of frontier hellion Nellie Oleson struck such a resonate chord with fans that Alison has learned to embrace the Nellie energy and use it for good. Her book is called, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated.
Raised in a bohemian show-biz family, Alison has been acting since early childhood. Her role as Nellie allowed her to vent the anger she carried due to suffering repeated sexual abuse at the hands of her brother. The power of Nellie gave her a voice to testify before the California State Senate and help create new law that criminalizes incest.
Nellie also provided Alison with a platform to advocate for AIDS research, education and outreach when her TV husband and beloved friend Steve Tracy died of the disease. Her traumatic childhood caught up with her after the wonderful distraction of Little House was over and with a compass that points to “Happy,” she walked into a therapist’s office at the age of 21 and said, “Here’s what happened to me. Let’s get to work.”
Alison shares loads of backstage Little House stories and talks about her relationships, then and now, with her cast mates and she is definitely up for a round of LHOP Trivia!
Plus, Fritz and Weezy are recommending the Barack Obama series, Working: What We Do All Day, on Netflix and Shrinking on Apple +, and we shout out the new album on Band Camp from Media Path friend, Melanie, The Magic Bus.
Path Points of Interest:
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim