Karen Grassle is best known to most of us as “Ma” (Caroline Ingalls)- the role she played on the popular Little House on the Prairie TV show which ran from 1974-1983. Her kind face, soft voice, and reassuring words made her an ideal fit for the role of loving mother and a much-needed balance to the sometimes wild character of “Pa” (Charles Ingalls) that was played by Michael Landon. But, the actress who was such a calming, adult presence on the show came to the role short on money and worried she wouldn’t have a job lined up at all.

Karen Grassle as Ma on Little House
Via: NBC/Wiki Commons

Just before her audition for Little House Grassle had been in London performing Shakespeare. She showed up to the airport believing a ticket back to LA was waiting for her as part of an independent film she was set to star in. When there was no ticket she had to write a bad check to purchase a her airfare back home. Once she arrived back in the States she found that the film was not happening at all.

A few months later she managed to land an audition with Michael Landon who was doing his own casting for his upcoming show based on the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. After having auctioned just about every woman in Hollywood Landon chose Grassle almost immediately and called for her to go to wardrobe to be fitted for her costumes before the audition was even over! However, NBC still wanted to have final say and they did a recorded audition before she was officially given the role. But, Landon knew right away that she was the right woman for the part, something she learned quickly as well.

Michael Landon in Chair On Little House Set
Via: Robert Lachman/Los Angeles Times/UCLA

During a 1975 interview Grassle told Bobbie Wygant that in an early scene with Landon the lines were something about how she didn’t miss her family back home because she was with the family she had created with her husband. Her delivery was so earnest that she made Landon tear up. She said, “It completely broke me up…I was laughing and crying. And that’s when I knew…we weren’t just going to do lines together… We were going to allow something human to happen between us.”

Grassle also brought a congeniality to the part by her very nature, and brought some toughness to the role by playing aspects of Caroline as her own mother, who she held in very high regard.

Daguerreotype of Caroline and Charles Ingalls from around 1860, not long after they were married
Daguerreotype of Caroline and Charles Ingalls from around 1860, not long after they were married. Via: Wiki Commons

She recalled how her mother had ridden on horseback to school, had taught in a one-room schoolhouse, and the toughness required by both Caroline and by her own mom and channeled all that into the role. The combination of resolute determination and sweetness was the result- making Caroline Ingalls a character that none of us are likely to ever forget.

You can watch the 1975 interview with Bobbie Wygant and hear what she thought of the role in the video below.

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