Karen Grassle Biography

Karen Trust Grassle (born February 25, 1942 in Berkeley, California) is an American actress, best known for her role as Caroline Ingalls, the wife of Michael Landon's character and the mother of Melissa Gilbert's character, in the NBC television drama series Little House on the Prairie.

Early life

Grassle graduated from Ventura High School in 1959, and afterward enrolled in Sophie Newcomb College (Tulane University, 1959"1960) and then the University of California, Berkeley. She graduated with two BA degrees in 1965, one in English, the other in Dramatic Art. She received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Career

Grassle's first acting job in New York City was in the short-lived 1968 play The Gingham Dog. Grassle played in Butterflies are Free at the Elitch Theatre in Denver, Colorado, in June 1972, along with Maureen O'Sullivan and Brandon deWilde, who was killed before leaving town after the performances ended.

Prior to portraying Caroline Ingalls, Grassle appeared in two TV series: one episode of the soap opera Love of Life as Bonnie Draper, and one episode of Gunsmoke entitled "The Wiving" as Fran, one of several saloon girls kidnapped a'la Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Grassle auditioned for the role of the mother, Caroline Ingalls, in the Little House on the Prairie TV series and won the part. The series ran for nine seasons, from 1974 to 1983.

During this time she played Kathy, the wife of Edward Herrmann's title character in Harry's War, a 1981 American film.

After the series ended, she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and became co-founder of Santa Fe's Resource Theater Company. Later she moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where she remained active in theater. Eventually, she moved back to California, where she still currently lives.

In 1994, she also appeared in the movie Wyatt Earp, starring Kevin Costner.

In 2006, she performed in Driving Miss Daisy in the starring role of Miss Daisy at the Manitoba Theater Center in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In August 2008, Grassle agreed to sign up as the promotional face for Premier Bathrooms, a supplier of bathing products for the elderly and infirm.

Personal life

Grassle has been married three times: her first husband was actor Leon Russom; In 1982, she married J. Allen Radford, a real estate developer, with whom she adopted a daughter, Lily. In 1991 she married Scott T. Sutherland, an osteopathic physician; they divorced in 2000. Single, she now lives in the San Francisco Bay area with Lily.

Filmography

Film and Television roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974	Gunsmoke	Fran	Episode: " The Wiving"
1977	Emily, Emily	Terry
1978	The President's Mistress	Donna Morton
1978	Battered	Susannah Hawks	Also writer
1979	Crisis in Mid-air	Betsy Culver
1979	Little House Years	Caroline Ingalls
1981	Harry's War	Kathy
1981	The Love Boat	Paula	1 episode
1974"82	Little House on the Prairie	Caroline Ingalls	182 episodes
1983	Cocaine: One Man's Seduction	Barbara Gant
1983	Hotel	Susan Walker	Episode: "Christmas"
1984	Little House: The Last Farewell	Caroline Ingalls
1985	Between the Darkness and the Dawn	Ellen Foster Holland
1987 1988	Murder, She Wrote	Christine Stoneham Fay Hewitt	"Murder in a Minor Key" "Harbinger of Death"
1994	Wyatt Earp	Mrs. Sutherland
2012	Tales of Everyday Magic	Aunt Dorothy