A rememberance project for Michael Landon

3Themesongs "Bonanza"
"Little house on the Prairie"
"Highway to heaven"

Michael Landon (October 31, 1936 -- July 1, 1991) was an American actor, writer, director, and producer, who starred in three popular NBC TV series that spanned three decades. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza (1959--1973), Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (1974--1983), and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven (1984--1989). Landon appeared on the cover of TV Guide twenty-two times, second only to Lucille Ball (TV Guide, July 6, 1991). His twenty-eight years of full-hour television acting surpasses that of TV legends Lucille Ball and James Arness.

Landon produced, wrote, and directed many of his series' episodes, including his shortest-lived production, Father Murphy, which starred his friend and "Little House" co-star Merlin Olsen. In 1981, Landon won recognition for his screenwriting with a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Although his youngest daughter Jennifer Landon and Bonanza co-star David Canary, have both won multiple Emmys, Michael Landon was never given the honor. In 1976 Landon wrote and directed an auto-biographical movie, The Loneliest Runner, and was nominated for two Emmys. He also hosted the annual long-running coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade with Kelly Lange, also on NBC.

Michael Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz in Forest Hills, a neighborhood of Queens, New York.[1][2] Landon's father, Eli Maurice Orowitz, was a Jewish American actor and movie theater manager, and his mother, Peggy O'Neill, was an Irish American Catholic dancer and comedienne. Eugene was the Orowitz' second child; his sister, Evelyn, was born three years earlier. In 1941, when Orowitz was four years old, he and his family moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Collingswood, New Jersey, where he attended and celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at Temple Beth Shalom,[citation needed],[3] a Conservative synagogue, in Haddon Heights, an area that did not allow Jews until after World War II.[4] His family recalls that Landon "went through a lot of hassle studying for the big event, which included bicycling to a nearby town every day to learn how to read Hebrew and do the chanting."[5] He later attended Collingswood High School.[1]

During his childhood, Landon was constantly worried about his mother's suicide attempts. Once the family went on a vacation on a beach, and his mother tried to jump off a cliff and drown herself, but a lifeguard was present and she was rescued. Soon after the attempt his mother acted as if nothing had happened. After a few minutes, Michael threw up. It was the worst experience of his life.[6]

Landon also battled the childhood problem of bedwetting, an issue that was documented in his biography, Michael Landon: His Triumph and Tragedy. His mother would put his wet sheets on display outside his window for all to see. He would run home every day and try to remove them before his classmates could see.

In high school, Landon was an excellent javelin thrower, his 193' 4" toss in 1954 being the longest throw by a high schooler in the United States that year.[7] This earned him an athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California, but after being involved in a hazing prank where older track team members cut his long hair into a crew cut, which Landon was very superstitious about, he tore a ligament in his shoulder, ending his athletic career.

[edit] Early career