“He taught me to embrace my voice, to stand up for myself,” Doherty said of the late actor
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Shannen Doherty is sharing the ways Michael Landon has influenced her life.
In Sunday’s episode of her podcast, Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty, the actress, 52, fielded fan questions — including a few about Landon, who starred alongside her in Little House on the Prairie and died in 1991 from pancreatic cancer.
After a fan asked her if she has “any favorite memories” from her time on the series, which aired from 1974 to 1983, Doherty said, “I got to work with Michael Landon — that’s one of my all-time favorite memories.”
“And just the things that I learned from him,” she continued. “He directed some of the episodes and wrote some of the episodes.”
“I just remember how he was as a director,” Doherty said, adding that the late actor “definitely helped me realize what kind of director I wanted to be.”
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Doherty — who joined Little House’s ninth and final season as Jenny Wilder at age 11 — said Landon’s directorial style “gave an example to me of being so concise and so thorough and so prepared, and really confident in his choices as a director.”
“I admired that, and I took it with me,” she added.
Elsewhere in the episode, Doherty said Landon’s guidance extended beyond her career, revealing that he “taught me to be true to myself.”
“He taught me to embrace my voice, to stand up for myself,” she said.
Landon not only helped Doherty realize her potential, but he also taught the actress some other useful skills, like how to play cards.
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Specifically, Landon taught the star how to play Liar’s Poker, which “occupied a lot of dead time on the set,” she said.
“You know, when they’re lighting and stuff, you sit around and you’re in school or you’re sitting around or you’re on your breaks, and so I would play Liar’s Poker with the crew,” she said, noting, “that was always really fun.”
“I loved Michael,” she added.
Landon, who played patriarch Charles Ingalls on Little House, wasn’t just Doherty’s costar and Liar’s Poker partner — he was also the reason she joined the show.
According to IMDb, the late star cast her in the NBC series after noticing her performance in her first-ever acting role in Western drama series Father Murphy at age 10.
