TV URBAN LEGEND: An actor nearly lost his dream job because of fan reaction to his portrayal of a villain in the finale of Little House on the Prairie.
At the heart of being a great actor is being able to convince people that you are someone else entirely. That's really the nature of the art, when all is said and done, that you are meant to get people to think that you are somebody else. An actor like Bryan Cranston particularly impresses fans because for years, he convincingly portrayed the adorably oddball patriarch Hal on Malcolm in the Middle, only to then follow that up by convincingly portraying the narcissistic sociopath Walter White on Breaking Bad.
However, there are times when the lines blur between actor and their role, and that can be a problem. This is most typically seen in the world of soap operas (well, at least it used to be the case when soap operas were much more popular than they are now), where the actors who played the villains on the shows would often be accosted by fans confusing them with their characters (there was even a movie, Nurse Betty, starring Renée Zellweger, based on the opposite form of that specific type of obsessive fan behavior, with Zellweger's character believing she was in love with one of the romantic leads on a soap opera). In the case of a memorable Little House on the Prairie villain, that blurred line nearly cost him the greatest gig in his career.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FINALE OF LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE?
Little House on the Prairie was a popular dramatic series, created by and starring Michael Landon, about a group of settlers in Walnut Grove, Minnesota (based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s best-selling Little House series of children’s books, which were based on her own life as a settler). Melissa Gilbert became a star as a young girl playing Laura.
Little House on the Prairie lasted for nine seasons, with Landon starring and producing the first eight seasons before going fully behind the scenes for the final season, which saw a new family take over the “Little House,” while Melissa Gilbert’s Laura (now married) took over as the main lead of the series from Landon. The show’s ratings dipped in the final season and the show was canceled. Landon, though, was given a chance to wrap the series up with a series of three television movies.Through a bit of a scheduling fluke, the second film (a Christmas story) ended up running a year after it was originally intended to run, making it a sort of post-script for the series when it finally aired, as the third film was clearly intended as a finale to the series, despite technically not being the final film broadcast. The third film, “The Last Farewell,” saw the citizens of Walnut Grove discover that a land developer, Nathan Lassiter (played by longtime character actor James Karen), has bought up all of their land. They try to fight his claim but fail. The citizens decided to make a stand against Lassiter by actually blowing up all the property in Walnut Grove rather than let Lassiter have it. So yes, the last episode of Little House on the Prairie ended with them destroying the town that fans had grown to love over nine seasons. I did a TV Legends Revealed years ago about the fascinating behind-the-scenes reasons for that rather dramatic decision, but whatever the behind the scenes reasons for the episode, the destruction of Walnut Grove hit viewers hard, and their ire was generally directed at Nathan Lassiter, a man so villainous that the heroes would rather blow up their homes than let him have them.
This, then, led to a rather tricky situation for Lassiter's portrayer, James Karen.
WHAT DID THE LITTLE HOUSE EPISODE ALMOST COST JAMES KAREN?
Karen had a long string of film and TV credits, but his best gig, by far, was as the TV spokesperson for the now mostly defunct East Coast supermarket and pharmacy chain, Pathmark (I say "mostly defunct" because the Pathmark name was purchased a couple of years ago and a single Brooklyn supermarket that was once a Pathmark was now re-named Pathmark, as an experiment to see if the brand could possibly return. So perhaps it will make a surprising comeback). Karen did hundreds of commercials a year for Pathmark beginning in either 1969 or 1970 (I'm not quite sure when his debut was). .
His character in the commercials was a nice, bespectacled man, who was generally known as "Mr. Pathmark." Here's one from 1981...
Well, in 1984, when the Little House on the Prairie finale aired, suddenly, Pathmark got a deluge of letters from angry customers demanding that the spokesperson be fired. Karen noted to Vernon Short of the Hollywood Reporter at the time, "Hundreds of letters came in to Pathmark asking the store to do something about me. The customer relations department couldn't believe it. For some reason they never objected to other heavies I played. But the evilness of Nathan Lassiter blew their minds. I guess they realized they'd never see Walnut Grove again and it created a great sense of loss."
Here is a sample letter, from a Veronica Truska of New Jersey: "I always liked the man you have in your commercials but after what he did to the little town of Walnut Grove, I couldn't believe it. I don't see how I can continue to shop at Pathmark after what your spokesman did to those innocent people. I guess I'll have to go back to Shoprite, even though I like your stores better. I still can't believe you'd let him do that."
Karen was beginning to freak out, "This is the best job an actor can have. It pays very well and it's steady. It's given me the freedom to be selective about the roles I play. But I guess I can't go around destroying towns like Walnut Grove. It's a bad idea. I am a part of the company, not just another actor doing commercials. I'm clearly identified with the stores. I go to New York every two weeks and run off 20 30-second commercials at a time. We've never used my name on the air but my recognition factor in those states is incredible. I'm on the air as often as 30 times a day on some areas. The day after they blew up Walnut Grove I was in New York. Truck drivers yelled at me. A cop said, 'Don't expect me to stop traffic for you,' and a cab driver said he wouldn't pick me up."
So Karen did a remarkable thing, he actually replied to the letters personally, through letters of his own or phone calls when people left phone numbers. He recalled, 'They were astounded to be hearing from me. At first they were floored. Then they laughed. Mrs. Truska, for instance, said her letter was a joke, but her husband was worried I'd lose my job. All the customers were happy I called and I think I convinced them that Mr. Pathmark is a benign kind of guy. I hope so, anyhow."
Karen remained in the role throughout the early 1990s, so it all worked out in the end.
The legend is...
STATUS: True
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