Nostalgia
‘Little House on the Prairie’ Star Turns 64 — Her ‘Brady Bunch’ Connection Is Wild
‘Little House on the Prairie’ star Melissa Sue Anderson turns 64. Discover her surprising ‘Brady Bunch’ connection and the role she played.
More than 50 years ago, Little House on the Prairie premiered on television. Melissa Sue Anderson, who played Mary Ingalls, celebrated her 64th birthday on September 26. While that was the role that defined her career, fans may remember that she also appeared on an episode of another iconic television show: The Brady Bunch. It just so happens that Anderson’s birthday, September 26, is also the anniversary of when The Brady Bunch first premiered in 1969.
On Little House on the Prairie, Anderson played the oldest daughter of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. As Comic Basics noted, Anderson was just 11 years old when she was cast on the show. Melissa Gilbert, who played middle sister Laura Ingalls on the show, was just 9 when she began.
While Anderson had already done some acting work and commercials, such as appearing in one episode of Bewitched in 1972, her work on Little House on the Prairie was by far the most significant role she ever had. She appeared in 162 episodes of the series, choosing to leave before the show ended. She appeared through season 7 and made occasional appearances in season 8. The show ended after nine seasons.
Through the ’70s and ’80s, Anderson also appeared in CHiPs, Fantasy Island, and The Love Boat, but it was a 1973 guest stint on The Brady Bunch that has really stuck with her fans.
The episode in which Anderson appeared aired in season 5 and was titled “Never Too Young.” She played Millicent, a friend of Cindy Brady’s (Susan Olsen), who surprised Bobby Brady (Mike Lookinland) with a kiss one day.
He saw fireworks during that first kiss experience, and Bobby visited her house soon after to plant a kiss on her. He told her he wanted to see if the fireworks happened again, which they did. Unfortunately, after the kiss, Millicent told him that she might have the mumps and she was waiting on test results.
That news left Bobby quite flustered initially, but luckily, Millicent didn’t have the mumps after all.
Several years later, Lookinland appeared in an episode of Little House on the Prairie, as well. His appearance came in 1977 for episode 2 of season 4. He was a boy on a train named Patrick, and he appeared just at the end of the episode.
During an interview in 2025, Lookinland revealed that when he first talked with Michael Landon about doing the brief Little House on the Prairie appearance, he was told that the plan was to have Patrick become a recurring character and Mary’s love interest. Unfortunately, Mary’s storyline went in a different direction, but fans still get a kick out of Anderson and Lookinland both appearing briefly on one another’s shows.
