Alison Arngrim is loved and feared by people all over the world for playing Nellie Oleson on one the most popular TV shows of all time, Little House on the Prairie.

Although the series mostly focused on Laura Ingalls family’s struggle to make it on a farm in the late 1800s, one of the main reasons the show was so popular was the classic battle between good and evil that took place between the wholesome freckled faced Laura Ingalls and the lying, scheming, manipulative, mean little rich girl with blond locks, Nellie Oleson.

It’s the intense scenes between the two child actresses, real-life best friends, that made the show such intense, campy and fun.


Feast of Fun Winner 2010 Book of the Year
As an adult, Alison’s one woman show became such a hit and she got so many questions about Little House on the Prairie that, she decided to put it all in a book “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated.”
It’s our favorite book of the year, and we think you’ll love it too.

As the daughter of eccentric Hollywood parents, Alison was left on her own and sexually abused by her brother the teen actor Stefan Arngrim.

Alison credits playing a fabulous villain on TV with saving her sanity and eventually coming to terms with her brother’s abuse and family’s neglect. She’s survived it all and has come out with a touching sense of humor and a fabulous outlook on life.

Join us as we talk with the extraordinary Alison Arngrim about: growing up in a crazy Hollywood home, Nellie Oleson as a verb, her father’s job managing Liberace, her parents friendship with the first famous transsexual Christine Jorgenson, and the performance group The Nellie Olesons.

Plus, everything about Little House on the Prairie- the Wheelchair Episode, why they drank so much on the set, and her TV husband Steve Tracy dying from AIDS in the 1980s.

[originally posted on 09.02.10]