Karen Grassle
Acting
Biography
Karen Trust Grassle (born February 25, 1942) is an American actress, known for her role as Caroline Ingalls in the NBC television drama series Little House on the Prairie. After summers at the Stanford Contemporary Workshop playing leads and two summers at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival playing classical roles, her first professional engagement was a season at the Front Street Theatre, Memphis, TN. upon return from London. While living in New York City, she worked at resident and stock theatres throughout the country, also appearing on PBS in original works and on networks in three soap operas. She made her Broadway debut in the short-lived 1968 play The Gingham Dog. Grassle played in Butterflies Are Free on Broadway (as stand-by with Gloria Swanson, Rosemary Murphy, etc.) as well as at the Elitch Theatre in Denver, Colorado, in June 1972, along with Maureen O'Sullivan and Brandon deWilde, who was killed before leaving town after the performances ended. Grassle starred in the Shakespeare in the Park "Cymbeline." with Christopher Walken, Sam Waterston, and Bill Devane. Grassle auditioned for the role of the mother, Caroline Ingalls, in the Little House on the Prairie TV series and won the part. The series ran for nine seasons, from 1974 to 1983. After making the pilot for Little House on the Prairie, Grassle appeared in one episode of Gunsmoke titled "The Wiving" as Fran, one of several saloon girls kidnapped. Subsequently, she acted in the features Harry's War, a 1981 American film where she played Kathy, the wife of Edward Herrmann's title character, and Wyatt Earp, a 1994 film starring Kevin Costner. On television, she starred in and co-wrote the NBC-TV film Battered. Other TV movies include Cocaine: One Man's Seduction, Crisis in MidAir, and Between the Darkness and the Dawn. In episodic TV, she starred in Hotel, Love Boat, and Murder She Wrote (twice.) She also appeared on Hollywood Squares and numerous talk shows such as Dinah, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, and John Davidson. During this period, she lobbied for federal funding for shelters for battered women and appeared in many events to support the Equal Rights Amendment. After the series ended, she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and became co-founder and artistic director of Santa Fe’s Resource Theater Company. Later she moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where she performed with the company of actors at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Grassle continues to perform in productions in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Palo Alto as well as tours and productions such as Driving Miss Daisy in the starring role of Miss Daisy at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in a co-production with Rubicon Theatre and at the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 2008, she was awarded a prize for her performance in Cabaret at the San Francisco Playhouse. Over the years, she has appeared in commercials such as the promotional face for Premier Bathrooms, a supplier of bathing products for the elderly and infirm.
Known For
The Mike Douglas Show is an American daytime television talk show hosted by Mike Douglas that originally aired only in the Cleveland area during much of its first two years on the air. It then went into syndication in 1963 and remained on television until 1982. It was distributed by Westinghouse Broadcasting and for much of its run, originated from studios of two of the company's TV stations in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
The Mike Douglas Show
An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.
Murder, She Wrote
Passengers who search for romantic nights aboard a beautiful ship travelling to tropical or mysterious countries, decide to pass their vacation aboard the "Love Boat", where Gopher, Dr. Bricker, Isaac, Julie, and Captain Stubing try their best to please them, and sometimes help them fall in love. Things are not always so easy, but in the end, love wins.
The Love Boat
When the big woods of Wisconsin becomes a difficult spot for hunting, Charles Ingalls reluctantly decides to move his family, pioneering west. Their life on the farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s is full of adventure, tragedy, and triumph. Based on the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Little House on the Prairie
Hotel is an American prime time drama series which aired on ABC from September 21, 1983 to May 5, 1988 in the timeslot following Dynasty. Based on Arthur Hailey's 1965 novel of the same name, the series was produced by Aaron Spelling and set in the elegant and fictitious St. Gregory Hotel in San Francisco. Establishing shots of the hotel were filmed in front of The Fairmont San Francisco atop the Nob Hill neighborhood. Episodes followed the activities of passing guests, as well as the personal and professional lives of the hotel staff.
Hotel
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.
Gunsmoke
From Wichita to Dodge City, to the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Wyatt Earp is taught that nothing matters more than family and the law. Joined by his brothers and Doc Holliday, Earp wages war on the dreaded Clanton and McLaury gangs.
Wyatt Earp
Long-running anthology program sponsored by Hallmark Cards. Beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2019, the series received 80 Emmy Awards, 24 Christopher Awards, 11 Peabody Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 4 Humanitas Prizes. Early seasons were a weekly live drama, eventually transitioning to videotaped and then filmed productions broadcast as occasional specials.
Hallmark Hall of Fame
The story of Simon and Kit, two young leaders of an Active Senior adventure tour group that take a day trip out to a small-town Rodeo located deep in the woods. Their lives are turned upside down when they find themselves fighting to stay alive against a group of psycho, bloodthirsty cowboys from the local rodeo.
Lasso
After his aunt dies of a heart attack while fighting the IRS, Harry Johnson decides to take up the cause.
Harry's War
While Charles and Caroline are visiting Walnut Grove, the townspeople learn that a land development tycoon has acquired title to all the land in Hero Township. They are inspired by Laura to vent their anger at this injustice.
Little House: The Last Farewell
A 47-year-old real estate salesman gets trapped in the insidious web of cocaine addiction.
Cocaine: One Man's Seduction
The life of a stressed-out air controller falls apart as he battles a court case involving a mid-air collision for which an investigator is trying to hold him responsible.
Crisis in Mid-Air
The story of the Ingalls family who left their house in Wisconsin and moved to the west, wanting to find a new place for home.
Little House on the Prairie
Gritty drama of three interweaving stories of three women of various backgrounds and ages whose marriages are complicated by spouse-abuse by their husbands.
Battered
A government courier is caught in a deadly cover-up after discovering that his murdered sister was not only the mistress of a U.S. president, but also a Soviet spy.
The President's Mistress
Celebrate the holidays with two classic "Little House" specials, restored and remastered for superior picture and sound. In "Christmas at Plum Creek," the members of the Ingalls family share a heartwarming first Christmas in their new home, and Laura makes a personal sacrifice that captures the meaning of the holidays. In "A Christmas They Never Forget," the family waits out a snowstorm by remembering favorite Christmases from the past.
Little House on the Prairie: A Merry Ingalls Christmas
Filmed in Vienna against the backdrop of a traveling Russian circus, The Magic Hand of Chance is the true story of a clumsy magician whose life is turned around when two clowns trick him into thinking he has received the highest honor by a fictitious Magicians Society in America. Because he starts to believe he is great . . . he ultimately becomes great.
Tales of Everyday Magic
A judge sentences a self-centered millennial to take care of his grandmother, who's affected by Alzheimer's. As he realizes the extent of the elderly woman's wealth and becomes her caregiver, the young protagonist gets ever-closer to Grandma and the treasure he's been looking for.
Not to Forget
A 17-year-old girl lapses into a coma and wakes up 20 years later.