“Yellowstone” star Jennifer Landon has captured fans’ hearts as the wild, volatile and profanity-loving ranch hand Teeter. With a shock of half-faded pink hair and a vocabulary made up largely of swear words, it might be hard for some fans to believe that the actor who plays Teeter is actually TV Western royalty. Jennifer Landon, Teeter’s real-life counterpart, is the daughter of “Little House on the Prairie” star Michael Landon, one of the biggest TV titans of his day.
Michael starred as Little Joe Cartwright on the iconic Western series “Bonanza” from 1959 to 1973, and a year later was cast as Charles Ingalls on “Little House on the Prairie,” a role he played for nearly a decade and made him a household name at the time. He was also the father of nine kids in total, and guided Jennifer to a life in front of the camera at an early age, before his untimely death after a battle with cancer in 1991.
“He was incredibly fun and very funny. He was all of those things that you’ve heard. I had a lot of respect for him. He didn’t really ever have to get upset because you weren’t really going to do anything to piss him off, which was nice,” Jennifer shared with Smashing Interviews in July 2017. She explained, “When I was little, it took me a while to realize he was really famous. I had no idea. In a weird way, there’s something mysterious about [him]. I know all parents are mysterious to their children, but I feel like people who are in the public eye have this kind of elusive quality.”
Michael Landon met Jennifer’s mom on the set of Little House on the Prairie
It was during his time on the beloved NBC drama series “Little House on the Prairie” that he met Jennifer Landon’s mother, Cindy Clerico, who worked as a make-up artist on the show. The pair hit it off and tied the knot in 1983. Clerico was Michael Landon’s third wife, with whom he welcomed two children: Jennifer, born in 1983, and Sean Landon, born in 1986.
Michael had a total of nine children, including Jennifer and Sean. He first got married to Dodie Levy-Fraser in 1959, he legally adopted her son Mark Fraser Landon, and then the couple adopted another son, Josh Fraser Landon. After divorcing Dodie in 1962, he remarried to Marjorie Lynn Noe the following year. He legally adopted her daughter, Cheryl Landon. The pair then went on to welcome four more children: Leslie Landon, Michael Landon Jr., Shawna Landon, and Christopher Landon.
Michael wound up leaving Marjorie for Cindy after sparking a romance on set. Notably, Marjorie and Michael met on the set of “Bonanza,” where Marjorie had been working as an extra. As Michael’s eldest daughter, Cheryl, wrote in “I Promised My Dad, her biography of her famous father (via MeTV), “According to everything I’ve ever been told by both my parents, it was love at first sight. Their eyes met, and as Dad explained, he knew in that instant that he ‘had to have her,’ that this woman had to be his mate.”
Jennifer Landon lost her father when she was only 7 years old
In 1991, Michael Landon was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which had metastasized to his liver. Despite the dire prognosis, Michael decided to begin chemotherapy and drug treatments. However, a short three months after revealing his cancer battle publicly, Michael died in July 1991 at the age of 54. Jennifer Landon was only 7 and her younger brother, Sean Landon, was 4.
“It is devastating beyond comprehension to lose a parent, especially at an early age… When he passed away, I suddenly saw things differently and questioned everything,” Jennifer told the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network in 2014. “Even today I question rules and structure. I can’t say how much his death has affected me, but I know it’s a significant part of the fabric of who I am.”
Because of the short time she got to spend with her father, Jennifer revealed that she will occasionally watch “Little House on the Prairie” reruns, as it allows her to feel a connection to her late father. She shared with Smashing Interviews that she has been able to bond with him through his performances. “I get to feel close to him the same way that somebody who has never met him would that’s turning on the TV,” Jennifer said. “I do it the same way that anybody who really adored him does it.”
Jennifer Landon got into acting because of her dad
In 1989, a 5-year-old Jennifer Landon got her first acting credit in an uncredited role on Michael Landon’s TV show “Highway to Heaven,” and it was a nerve-racking experience. Jennifer was acting alongside a slew of other children who were all professional child actors, and she’d been cast because her dad was the star. “My dad wanted to put his kid in something and he was allowed to do that,” she told Smashing Interviews. “I always say if your dad owns a deli, your first job is probably working at the deli. But it changes the scope a little bit when a bunch of other people want that job, and I might’ve picked up on that a little bit. I watched it not long ago, and I was like, ‘I look traumatized! That poor kid!'”
While she didn’t feel a call to acting after that first outing, she found herself drawn to it when she realized how much she enjoyed making people laugh as a kid. Her first major break came in 2005 when she was cast on the CBS daytime soap opera “As the World Turns.” She starred as Gwen Norbeck Munson in nearly 500 episodes of the series from 2005 to 2010, during which time she snagged three Daytime Emmy Awards for her efforts.
She’s dipped into other soap operas with small roles in “Days of Our Lives” and “The Young and the Restless,” but captivated audiences when she was cast as the thickly accented cowgirl Teeter in “Yellowstone.” With the beloved drama series coming to an end, there’s chatter among fans that Teeter could show up in the long-rumored spin-off series “6666,” but Jennifer’s future playing the beloved ranch hand is still entirely speculative.