Melissa Gilbert wasn't born into a showbiz family. They adopted her. When she was one day old, Paul Gilbert and his wife, Barbara Crane, adopted little "Missy." She was a natural from the start. Melissa got her big break when she was just ten years old. She was cast as Michael Landon's daughter on the TV show Little House on the Prairie. Based on the book by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the show put little Melissa in front of millions of TV viewers who watched her grow up over the next ten years. Book jacket.