Net Worth Melissa Gilbert

It’s estimated that Melissa Gilbert has a net worth in the neighborhood of $500,000. This is the combined fortune she and her husband, fellow actor Timothy Busfield, have amassed since their marriage in 2013. “Little House on the Prairie” is Melissa’s best-known role.

Career

Early on, Gilbert appeared in numerous commercials, including one for Alpo dog food with Lorne Greene (father of Bonanza star Michael Landon). Landon’s daughter Leslie also went to school with her. When Leslie informed her that she had won the role of Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, she was stunned. Originally aired on ABC in 1973, the pilot was an instant hit. Gilbert began filming the show a year and a half later. After the death of Gilbert’s adoptive father, she became inseparable from the Landon family. After Michael Landon’s affair with Little House’s young makeup artist, Cindy Clerico, became public knowledge, a rift developed between him and Gilbert.

After the end of Little House on the Prairie in the 1983–84 season, Gilbert had very little contact with Landon. On May 9, 1991, Landon appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson where he talked about his pancreatic cancer. Seven years later, she was contacted by Landon’s family and paid a heartfelt visit to him after hearing about his condition. She spent the afternoon with Landon at his Malibu home, where he was bedridden at the time. One week after Landon’s death, Landon’s name was given to Gilbert’s son by her second husband Bruce Boxleitner, when he was born on October 6, 1995.

The majority of Gilbert’s work continued to be in television, which he continued to do regularly. When she and then-husband Bruce Boxleitner appeared in three episodes of Babylon 5 in 1996, she played Anna Sheridan, a character created by Jean Donovan in the biopic Choices of the Heart. While she was a voice actress for Batman: The Animated Series in the 1990s and provided the voice of Batgirl, she was replaced by Tara Strong for the series’ follow-up The New Batman Adventures.

As a reward for her work in television, Gilbert was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1985. Rob Lowe, her then-fiancé, was in the audience when her star was unveiled at the event.

Since then she has been a member of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma’s Cowboy Hall of Fame. Nip/fourth Tuck’s season saw Gilbert play Shari Noble, a patient who had committed zoophilia with her dog and was looking to have her nipples reconstructed.

Gilbert portrayed Caroline “Ma” Ingalls in the Little House on the Prairie musical from 2008 to 2009. Francesca Zambello directed this world premiere production at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, which also featured Kara Lindsay in the role of Laura. The show was on a 2009–10 US National Tour and ended on October 19th. When the tour came to an end at the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, in June of 2010, it was a success.

Off-Off-Broadway production of Geraldine Aron’s 2001 one-woman play “2001 My Brilliant Divorce” starred Gilbert in March and April of 2018.

Political Career

To try her hand at a political career, Gilbert had announced her intention to run for the 8th Congressional District of Michigan in 2016.   However, as the presumed Democratic nominee in the district, Gilbert withdrew from the race in May 2016 due to health concerns.

Biography

Parents Kathy Wood and David Darlington were engaged at the time of Gilbert’s birth, and she was immediately put up for adoption. One day later, she was adopted by Paul Gilbert, an actor and comedian, and his wife, Barbara Crane, a dancer and actress, the daughter of Harry Crane, the creator of The Honeymooners. Jonathan, a co-star in Little House on the Prairie, was later adopted by the family.

At the age of 8 years old, Gilbert’s parents divorced. Sara Gilbert was born on January 29, 1975, when her mother married Harold Abeles and they had a biological daughter, Sara Rebecca Abeles.

When Paul Gilbert died in 1976, it was on February 13th. Melissa, then 11, was told he had a stroke, but she discovered years later that he had been a VA patient who suffered from constant pain and had committed suicide. Barbara Abeles and Harold Abeles divorced later in life. Although she was raised in her adoptive mother’s Jewish faith, Gilbert had no formal religious education or conversion ceremony, according to her biographical information.

Relationships

Melissa began dating actor Rob Lowe when she was 17 years old. It was six years before they broke up. Gilbert, on the other hand, was seeing actors Tom Cruise and John Cusack at the time. In 1988, she married Bo Brinkman, from whom she later divorced two years later. After that, she was married to actor Bruce Boxleitner for twenty years, from 1995 until 2011.  They separated in March 2011 and Gilbert had filed for divorce in August 2011.   Timothy Busfield, an actor, has been her husband since 2013.

Net Worth Melissa Gilbert: Endorsements

Melissa Gilbert has done a number of endorsements for corporate brands. She has endorsed Butterball Turkey, Alpo Dog Food, Noxezma, Belle Color hair color, Crest toothpaste, Chaz’s Wen healthy hair care system, and Garnier through television commercials. She has also done endorsement for Eucerine, The Queen’s Treasures, Shea Mositure and Le Labo Fragrances.

Net Worth Melissa Gilbert: Awards

Melissa has won some nice awards in the past as recognition of ongoing and outstanding work on television. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her work on the movie The Miracle Worker. She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series. She has also won 2 Young Artists Awards.

Health Issues

The author of a 2009 autobiography, Gilbert has battled both alcoholism and drug abuse.

Gilbert had been working with a broken back for months while portraying Caroline “Ma” Ingalls in the touring production of Little House on the Prairie. Gilbert had surgery on her lower spine to replace a disc and fuse a vertebra on July 22, 2010. The procedure was hailed as a complete success when it was completed.

Gilbert had her breast implants removed in January 2015 because she was concerned about her health.

Legal Issues

Melissa Gilbert allegedly owed $360,000 in federal income taxes, according to reports. Apparently, she and the IRS were able to work out a payment schedule. Her second encounter with the IRS. In 2013, she was said to owe $112,000 to creditors. A statement was released by Gilbert to explain why she was having financial difficulties.

Net Worth Melissa Gilbert: Property

Melissa and Timothy bought a 14-acre property in the Catskill Mountains of New York for $98,000 in 2019, about 20 minutes away from Woodstock. This is where the family currently makes their home.

All net worth information is collected and calculated from public information. When possible, we also incorporate private tips and comments submitted by the celebrities or their representatives. While we do our best to ensure that our figures are correct, they are only estimates unless otherwise stated. We welcome any refinements or criticism using the comment section below.