How tall is Melissa Gilbert

Miss Sandy Cowell said on 7/Feb/21
The author character who Melissa Gilbert portrayed in 'The Little House on the Prairie', Laura Ingalls Wilder, was born 154 years ago today. Unlike Melissa who grew to 5ft4, the real Laura Ingalls grew to only 4ft11. She passed on peacefully in her sleep three days after her 90th Birthday.

RIP Laura Ingalls Wilder 🕯️
7th February 1867 - 10th February 1957

Nik J Ashton said on 5/Dec/20
She's taller than about half of American women!

Miss Sandy Cowell said on 3/Dec/20
I've just started watching a DVD called 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark', and, fairly predictably, the first one centres round some youngsters who, on Halloween night, visit a haunted house.

It's reminded me of a lovely episode of 'Little House on the Prairie', wherein the kids, including Melissa, are scared of a tumbledown house and the man who lives therein. Even the adults find him strange, but he keeps very much to himself minding his own business, expecting the townsfolk to do likewise.

One afternoon after school, the Oleson children and Melissa's Laura Ingalls go to look at the house and the Oleson kids dare Laura to enter it. She doesn't want to bottle out, so she does so with her little dog, who disturbs the man when he chases a black cat. Laura is scared witless, but the meeting turns into a beautiful friendship.

The poor man was desperately depressed because he had lost his ballerina wife, and he opens up to little Laura, telling her all about his beloved, but frail, wife. She affords him the first bit of company he's had since his wife's tragic passing, and it's therapeutic for him to be able to pour his heart out to the child.

Laura realises that the best way to help him feel normal again is by cleaning up his house and turning it into the home that it once was, and so she goes there after school every day and gets her teeth into the task with great gusto and love, all the time affording the widower the company he's been missing out on for years.

The episode has the happiest of endings, when the man turns up all smartly dressed for Church, and in the small towns of late 19th century America, the Church was the centrepoint of the people's social lives, a time to wear your best clothes and to meet up with your friends.

The Ingalls parents had every reason to be proud of their daughter. One thing I enjoyed about the programme was it showed how incredibly happy families could be with only just sufficient food and by creating their own entertainment. They had to plant the majority of their food (crops) and go fishing and there was only one shop to serve the entire little community.

They had every bit as much fun as we do, probably more. Having a new dress or suit, for instance, was more special than we could imagine, yet they were grateful for what little they had and gave thanks at every mealtime.

Okay, so they won't have had sufficient supplies to grow as tall, but they didn't know any different, and good health and their newly-found peace time were appreciated because, certainly with the adults, they knew the fear of civil war.

Despite the awful Covid virus, look how blessed we are with our homes, our games and all our TV entertainment, including the company the internet has to offer. Had this virus struck just one and a half centuries ago, science wouldn't have been advanced enough to come up with a solution, but today, we have more hope than ever.

Melissa gets 5ft4. 👧🍞👗

Miss Sandy Cowell said on 8/May/20
💐🎂🎁 Happy Birthday Melissa! 🎁🎂💐

A Very Happy Birthday to Melissa Gilbert, who turns 56 today. I wish her a lovely day with her nearest and dearest, including her two sons, if that's at all possible under these strange circumstances we find ourselves in.

5ft4 😉👍🎈 XX

💐🎂🎁🎈💐🎂🎁🎈💐🎂🎁🎈💐🎂🎁🎈

Nik said on 24/Oct/19
@ Rob - Yip!

Nik said on 9/May/19
It's incredible that she claimed to be 5'3"!

I hope Melissa had a lovely birthday!

Miss Sandy Cowell said on 8/May/19
🎁🎂💐 Happy Birthday Melissa! 💐🎂🎁

I'm watching 'The Little House on the Prairie' right now! It's a programme I can never grow tired of, and when it started, I was a 13-year-old pigtailed youngster, so I must say, I thoroughly approved of her choice of hairstyle!

"Happy Birthday to you Melissa! Have a great time with your husband, your two sons and your friends. I hope you get loads of luvverly presents!"

5ft4 is my Birthday guess.

🎁🐻😁🎁🐻😁🎁🐻😁🎁🐻😁🎁🐻😁👍

Rhianna said on 9/Jul/18
Well she is taller than the real Laura Ingalsbe Wilder was. She was only 4’11. Melissa is about 5’3

Sandy Cowell said on 31/May/18
Obviously, when you watch 'The Little House on the Prairie', you can't take in Laura's, or should I say Melissa's height until the 'New Beginning' ones start and Laura is grown up! She's still in her late teens though, and I'm sure she plays much older, but then, in the late 19th Century, kids had to grow up much, much earlier!

I can believe 5ft4 for Melissa by comparing her to her Mum in this, played by Karen Grassle, who is written up on as a convincing 168cm, if you Google her!

Melissa made many films since her Prairie days, including one with Rosanna Arquette, about couples whose babies are switched at birth. I haven't seen it for a while, but it shows on the 'True' Freeview Channels sometimes, and would be a great opportunity to see if the two girls are the same sort of height, which they should be!

Sandy Cowell said on 25/Oct/16
I am watching 'The Little House on the Prairie' as we speak! It is on 'True Christmas' and is the one when Melissa is married and all the friends and family meet up round the home she was brought up in and discuss their Christmas stories from long ago!
I was always of the impression that Melissa is about 5ft4. She has done many films since, including one with Rosanna Arquette, and they are all rather delightful

X said on 19/Apr/07
I don't know her height but I'd agree with either 5 ft. 3 or 4. Although I doubt the "Halfpint" nickname could be used to determine her 'shortness' since that nickname was given when she was still a growing child.

Many adults refer to children as shorty or such.

CelebHeights Editor said on 9/May/05
Ah, in her own website the profile said 5ft 4, but then she says on a Q&A page: "I am 5'3". Bruce is 6'2". Michel Landon nicknamed me "Halfpint"."