Karen Grassle

Karen Grassle

Born: February 25, 1942
in Berkeley, California, USA
Karen Trust Grassle (/ɡræsliː/ GRASS-LEE; 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.

Movies for Karen Grassle...

Not to Forget
Title: Not to Forget
Character: Melody
Released: November 26, 2021
Type: Movie
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.
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Lasso
Title: Lasso
Character: Lillian
Released: October 22, 2017
Type: Movie
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.
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Where's Roman?
Title: Where's Roman?
Character: Mysterious Woman
Released: March 15, 2017
Type: Movie
A haunted war vet accepts an unlikely offer to watch a cat, and is plunged into a fever dream of twisted characters, sexual intrigue and catastrophic violence.
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Little House on the Prairie: A Merry Ingalls Christmas
Title: Little House on the Prairie: A Merry Ingalls Christmas
Released: November 4, 2014
Type: Movie
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.
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Tales of Everyday Magic
Title: Tales of Everyday Magic
Released: January 1, 2012
Type: Movie
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.
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Wyatt Earp
Title: Wyatt Earp
Character: Mrs. Sutherland
Released: June 24, 1994
Type: Movie
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.
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Between the Darkness and the Dawn
Title: Between the Darkness and the Dawn
Character: Ellen Foster Holland
Released: December 23, 1985
Type: Movie
A 17-year-old girl lapses into a coma and wakes up 20 years later.
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Title: Murder, She Wrote
Character: Christine Stoneham
Released: September 30, 1984
Type: TV
An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.
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Little House: The Last Farewell
Title: Little House: The Last Farewell
Character: Caroline Ingalls
Released: February 6, 1984
Type: Movie
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.
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Cocaine: One Man's Seduction
Title: Cocaine: One Man's Seduction
Character: Barbara Gant
Released: February 27, 1983
Type: Movie
A 47 year old real estate salesman gets trapped in the insidious web of cocaine addiction.
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Title: Hotel
Released: August 21, 1982
Type: TV
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.
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Harry's War
Title: Harry's War
Character: Kathy
Released: March 6, 1981
Type: Movie
After his aunt dies of a heart attack while fighting the IRS, Harry Johnson decides to take up the cause.
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The Little House Years
Title: The Little House Years
Character: Caroline Ingalls
Released: November 15, 1979
Type: Movie
Laura Ingalls reminisces about the Ingalls' journeys and struggles during a family Thanksgiving gathering.
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Crisis in Mid-Air
Title: Crisis in Mid-Air
Character: Betsy Culver
Released: February 13, 1979
Type: Movie
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.
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Battered
Title: Battered
Character: Susannah Hawks
Released: September 26, 1978
Type: Movie
Gritty drama of three interweaving stories of three women of various backgrounds and ages whose marriages are complicated by spouse-abuse by their husbands.
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The President's Mistress
Title: The President's Mistress
Character: Donna Morton
Released: February 10, 1978
Type: Movie
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.
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Title: The Love Boat
Character: Paula
Released: September 24, 1977
Type: TV
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.
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Title: Little House on the Prairie
Character: Caroline Ingalls
Released: September 11, 1974
Type: TV
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western drama television series, starring Michael Landon, Melissa Gilbert, and Karen Grassle, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s.
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Little House on the Prairie
Title: Little House on the Prairie
Character: Caroline Ingalls
Released: March 30, 1974
Type: Movie
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.
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Title: Gunsmoke
Character: Fran
Released: September 10, 1955
Type: TV
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.
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Title: Hallmark Hall of Fame
Released: December 24, 1951
Type: TV
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The longest-running primetime series in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning during 1951 and continuing into 2013. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, though the program began with live telecasts of dramas and then changed to videotaped productions before finally changing to filmed ones. The series has received eighty Emmy Awards, twenty-four Christopher Awards, eleven Peabody Awards, nine Golden Globes, and four Humanitas Prizes. Once a common practice in American television, it is the last remaining television program such that the title includes the name of the sponsor. Unlike other long-running TV series still on the air, it differs in that it broadcasts only occasionally and not on a weekly broadcast programming schedule.