Iconic actor Michael Landon was a star, popular for his roles on Bonanza, Little House on
the Prairie, and Highway to Heaven.
However, there was a lot more to his life than most people knew.
This is the life and tragic death of Michael Landon.
Michael Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz to Jewish and Catholic parents in 1936.
His dad struggled as a movie publicist, while his mom was an actress who harbored thoughts
of killing herself.
Landon's parents constantly fought with each other.
Crumbling under the pressure, Landon used to wet his bed, and his mom would humiliate
him by hanging the bedsheet to dry outside.
In her book, I Promised My Dad, Landon's daughter, Cheryl, wrote that her father's difficult
childhood experiences made him decide early on that he would never follow in his parents'
footsteps.
According to Cheryl, the young Landon vowed to live his life differently as an adult.
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Michael Landon's beginnings were full of tough moments.
He was often bullied by his classmates for being half-Jewish.
"I was a Jewish kid in a town of uh… with only a couple of them."
He was thin and angry as a child.
Additionally, his mother bullied him and his dad at home.
Landon's daughter, Cheryl, described how exhausting life was for the family in I Promised My Dad,
writing,
"[Landon's mother] bullied everyone, including her husband.
Dad felt his father shouldn't have allowed such things to happen."
Landon believed that it was a bit too much for his father, who eventually grew weary
of it all.
Cheryl wrote that Landon spent a lot of time by himself.
He'd often fantasize about building an identity for himself, away from his current reality.
Later in his life, in the 1950s, he faced immense disappointment when his dad tried
to get him a gig in Los Angeles through his connections at RKO Radio Pictures.
It was an embarrassing moment for the father-son duo, as Landon's dad couldn't even get onto
the property because of a steadfast security guard.
Landon decided, at that point, to make sure that he was independent, never having to answer
to anyone.
Despite encountering several obstacles early in his life, Michael Landon was undoubtedly
talented and discovered that quickly.
He was an excellent javelin thrower.
Landon's low grades didn't stop him from excelling, and he scored an athletic scholarship from
the University of Southern California after graduating from high school.
He was at the university for a year, during which he worked on his skills and also supported
himself by holding down odd jobs.
As his daughter Cheryl described in I Promised My Dad, Landon was determined and had always
been fascinated by acting.
While harboring dreams of competing in the Olympics, he also decided to be a part of
his university's speech and drama department.
Unfortunately, more bullying followed at the university, and Landon sustained a serious
injury on the field.
Unable to cope as his athletic performance suffered, he decided to take a break and rebuild.
Landon continued to make a living through odd jobs and focused on getting by, even working
as a babysitter at one point and eventually working in a soup factory, followed by a ribbon
factory.
He was determined to excel, no matter what he was doing.
While it's true that Michael Landon enjoyed acting, he didn't plan on pursuing it professionally.
Nevertheless, he found himself doing exactly that through a series of unexpected events.
As the story goes, while Landon was working at the ribbon factory, a colleague asked him
to assist him with an audition for Warner Bros. Landon was happy to help and found himself
enjoying the acting process.
He still needed to make ends meet and decided to take a job at a gas station near the Warner
Bros. studios.
He hoped that being close to the studio would help him in terms of networking.
It did.
He was spotted by an executive who motivated him to sign up for acting classes.
He continued supporting himself through random work gigs as he made his way through acting
school, determined to see it through.
He changed his name to Michael Landon, choosing the name from a phone book, and broke into
the acting scene in the mid-1950s.
Landon wasn't an overnight success, though, and worked hard to get parts, auditioning
whenever he could and doing small roles until he got his first real break.
Michael Landon's first major break was a 1957 horror film called I Was A Teenage Werewolf,
which helped him get noticed.
The movie was unconventional, and Landon went all-out in his role as a teenager who was
troubled and had a hard time coping as things escalated around him, much like his own life.
After I Was A Teenage Wolf, things started looking up a bit for Landon.
He pursued several roles in movies like High School Confidential, The Legend Of Tom Dooley,
and God's Little Acre.
Things took off for Michael Landon in 1959, when he was hired to play Little Joe in Bonanza.
Just 22 years old at the start, he was Little Joe for a long time onscreen — 14 years,
to be precise — and he was loved for his portrayal of the ideal son in a ranch-like
setting in Nevada.
Bonanza was the first TV Western to be broadcast in color and wasn't initially expected to
be such a raging hit.
It really took off after NBC started showcasing it to audiences over the weekends, and by
1964, it was ruling viewers' hearts.
The show enjoyed a loyal fan following and maintained its popularity for years until
it concluded in 1973.
Without a doubt, Bonanza made Landon a force to be reckoned with, paved the way for his
robust acting career, and helped him find his niche and identity in the cutthroat entertainment
industry.
While Michael Landon was busy working on his career and trying to make a name for himself
as an actor, he suffered a major setback in 1959.
His father was accustomed to a routine that he usually followed: Grab lunch next to a
theater he was managing and sample the soup of the day every time he dropped by.
One day, though, he said the soup was good, as usual, right before suffering a major heart
attack.
According to his daughter Cheryl, Landon was shaken by his father's unexpected passing
and mourned his loss.
He also started to believe that his fate would be similar — that he'd go early because
of a heart attack.
Landon took care of his father's funeral costs and also ensured that he was looking out for
his mother's and sister's financial needs throughout his life.
Losing his father left him shaken for days, and he had a hard time when he got back on
set while filming The Legend Of Tom Dooley.
He was still grieving and learning to live with his loss.
Later in his career, Michael Landon wished to take control and oversee his work, an aspect
of his personality that irritated many co-workers.
When Landon turned to directing a few episodes of Bonanza and even writing them, he was his
own worst critic and believed that some of the episodes weren't as good as what they'd
already done.
Additionally, because he was always chasing perfection, he ended up having a few disagreements
with those he worked with.
Bonanza's executive producer once remarked:
"[Landon would] challenge nearly every line, every scene, every setup in other writers'
scripts.
It got increasingly bitter toward the end."
Landon was labeled as arrogant and stubborn at times, but he said that he didn't want
to blame others for his mistakes and would rather take responsibility in case an episode
didn't work as expected.
Unfortunately for Michael Landon, his personal life, particularly in terms of romance, wasn't
perfect.
He was married three times as he navigated rocky relationships.
As aptly described by People, Landon was often depicted as a family man on one of his most
popular shows, Little House on the Prairie, but his reality was different.
The failure of his first marriage can be chalked up to being too young.
However, Landon was truly upset when people thought he left his second wife for a younger
woman, later reflecting:
"You don't dissolve a relationship to go to bed with someone 20 years younger.
You have to have major differences and a deep-rooted need to stop a relationship after as many
years as I was married."
Landon found domestic bliss with the lady he had the affair with, Cindy Clerico, who
was a makeup artist at the time.
In fact, Landon was so committed to continuing his family and making up for everything he'd
lost in his early years that he had his vasectomy reversed after he married Cindy.
"It's the first time I've taken a great deal of time off and I'm enjoying it.
Doing a little more vacation time than usual with the kids, and spending more time with
the kids."
Melissa Gilbert was one of Michael Landon's co-stars on Little House on the Prairie.
Gilbert looked up to Landon, revealing,
"Our relationship was very close, and it grew even deeper when my father passed away [in
1976].
Our families got close.
We went on vacation to Hawaii together every Easter.
His son Mike Jr. was my prom date."
Unfortunately, their relationship suffered a setback when it was discovered that Landon
was having an affair with Cindy.
Gilbert was heartbroken.
In I Promised My Dad, Cheryl wrote that Gilbert was as surprised as Landon's own family was
when details of the affair came out.
Cheryl added that Gilbert had publicly commented that Landon leaving his wife for someone younger
proved that he was far from perfect.
The affair had a detrimental effect on Gilbert's relationship with Landon.
She stayed polite but wasn't as friendly with Landon as she used to be, and they didn't
communicate for a long time after the show ended.
Gilbert wouldn't speak to Landon again until 1990.
Despite their long period of friction, Gilbert remembered her on-screen father with fondness
later in life, saying in 2009:
"He was an amazing man, an amazing talent, an incredible director, actor, writer, a great
boss, an incredible human being."
Michael Landon's life was irrevocably changed when he received a cancer diagnosis in April
1991, though he remained strong and wasn't scared of dying.
In an interview with LIfe magazine, Landon commented about his battle with the disease,
saying,
″Look, there's two things that can happen.
I can win or I can lose.
And I can handle both."
After being diagnosed, Landon devoted a lot of his time to his family while focusing on
treatment options like chemotherapy and experimental treatments.
"I think every moment just gets a little more important after something like this."
Landon stated that he wouldn't simply lose hope and would fight back.
He also said that he had faith in God and family and that he wasn't scared of death.
In I Promised My Dad, Cheryl reflected on one of her biggest regrets: the fact that
her father spent much of his final weeks not seeing his children because of miscommunication
between her and Cindy.
The latter told Cheryl and her siblings that Landon could only see them on the weekends,
which was far from the truth.
Cheryl wrote that she felt deep pain and regret when she found out the truth and feared that
Landon may have misunderstood why his kids didn't spend more time with him.
Michael Landon may not have been afraid of death, but when he passed away at the age
of 54 in July 1991, he left many fans heartbroken.
When he passed, former President Ronald Reagan remembered him, saying:
"His tragic battle with cancer touched the hearts of every American, as did his indomitable
spirit."
Landon's funeral was a private affair that had 500 attendees at a memorial park in Los
Angeles.
Melissa Gilbert paid tribute to Landon, saying,
"He was so special and so basically good.
With him, you always knew exactly where you stood.
The man had integrity."
Many years after his passing, Landon's legacy has stayed thanks to his contribution to American
TV shows.
Despite the tragic nature of his death, Landon remained upbeat until the very end and felt
he hadn't missed out on much in his life, saying,
"I've had a pretty good lick here."
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