Nostalgia
The ‘General Hospital’ Star Who You May Have Missed on ‘Little House on the Prairie’
Nancy Lee Grahn played a saloon girl in ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Season 6 before her ‘General Hospital’ and ‘Santa Barbara’ roles.
Long before she started playing attorney Alexis Davis on General Hospital, Nancy Lee Grahn had a small role on an iconic ’70s television show. She appeared as a saloon girl in the Season 6 finale of Little House on the Prairie, and it is a fun appearance that fans love to revisit.
The episode Grahn appeared in was Part II of “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.” During that episode, Laura (Melissa Gilbert) visited Sleepy Eye and spotted Almanzo (Dean Butler) with the saloon girl. Laura mistakenly assumed that the saloon girl was Almanzo’s new girlfriend.
Soon, Almanzo became seriously ill with pneumonia. Charles Ingalls (Michael Landon) filled Laura in on what Almanzo had been doing in Sleepy Eye, which had nothing to do with flirting with a saloon girl. Laura went to Almanzo, and they worked through her perception of the “other woman,” getting their relationship fully back on track.
General Hospital fans get a kick out of revisiting Grahn’s brief gig on Little House on the Prairie.
On Facebook, several fans admitted they didn’t recognize her, with at least one person questioning if it really was Grahn. Another person on Facebook noted that Grahn looked quite a bit like fellow General Hospital star Rebecca Herbst during her brief time portraying a saloon girl.
On Reddit several years ago, one fan of both shows admitted, “Wow, I’ve been watching GH forever and have seen this episode hundreds of times. I never put the two together! Thanks for pointing that out!”
Little House on the Prairie was one of Grahn’s very first professional acting gigs. Shortly after appearing as the saloon girl, she started booking other shows regularly.
In the early ’80s, Grahn also appeared on The Incredible Hulk, Magnum, P.I., and Knight Rider before landing her breakout role, playing Julia Wainwright on the soap opera Santa Barbara. She joined General Hospital in 1996 and has appeared in over 2,220 episodes since debuting as Alexis Davis.
