Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated - Softcover

Arngrim, Alison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061962155 ISBN 13: 9780061962158

Publisher: It Books, 2011

Synopsis

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch is Alison Arngrim's comic memoir of growing up as one of television's most memorable characters--the devious Nellie Oleson on the hit television show Little House on the Prairie. With behind-the-scenes stories from the set, as well as tales from her bohemian upbringing in West Hollywood and her headline-making advocacy work on behalf of HIV awareness and abused children, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch is a must for fans of everything Little House the classic television series and its many stars like Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert; Gilbert's bestselling memoir Prairie Tale... and, of course, the beloved series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder that started it all.

About this title

Review:

"Alison Arngrim is a talented actress and an author who has patched together a meaningful life and created a book whose pages...fly."--Phyllis Diller

"As a city bitch myself, I loved this book! It's nice to see how the other half lives. Alison Arngrim's memoir is a hilarious, moving, and dishy Hollywood tale."--Margaret Cho

"Hilarious and heartbreaking."--Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Arngrim, decades past her 'Little House On The Prairie' years, dishes lots of great on-set stories, talks about what being a kid actor in the 1970s was actually like and discusses her own painful family history with frankness and humor....Delightful."--NPR.org

"Spunky Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie [Oleson], gets my kudos...Alison has a knack for yanking people's chains in a good way. And her new bestselling memoir, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, is such an absorbing read, I just had to give the woman a call for some bitch talk."--Michael Musto, Village Voice

"'Confessions of a Prairie Bitch' says it all: Neither Arngrim nor Nellie could ever be called boring."--Entertainment Weekly

"Alison Arngrim is a fine actress and a true comedienne. She has always been the kind of 'Bitch' who tells it like it is. So, readers beware, you are in for an eye-full of reality told with a remarkable sense of humor."--Carol Channing

"Whoa, Nellie! "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch" is a book that you will keep stored under a haystack in the barn, to dip into whenever you need a shot of something that will keep you down on the farm."--Bruce Vilanch

"Courage, moxie, chutzpah, cajones. Alison Arngrim has them all in spades. In "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch," she bares her soul and manages to share her story with grace, dignity, and her inimitable humor. Simply put, I love this book and I love her. "--Melissa Gilbert

"Arngrim displays a healthy sense of humor."--Chicago Sun-Times

From the Back Cover:

For seven years, Alison Arngrim played a wretched, scheming, selfish, lying, manipulative brat on one of TV history's most beloved series. Though millions of Little House on the Prairie viewers hated Nellie Oleson and her evil antics, Arngrim grew to love her character--and the freedom and confidence Nellie inspired in her.

In Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, Arngrim describes growing up in Hollywood with her eccentric parents: Thor Arngrim, a talent manager to Liberace and others, whose appetite for publicity was insatiable, and legendary voice actress Norma MacMillan, who played both Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. She recalls her most cherished and often wickedly funny moments behind the scenes of Little House Michael Landon's "unsaintly" habit of not wearing underwear; how she and Melissa Gilbert (who played her TV nemesis, Laura Ingalls) became best friends and accidentally got drunk on rum cakes at 7-Eleven; and the only time she and Katherine MacGregor (who played Nellie's mom) appeared in public in costume, provoking a posse of elementary schoolgirls to attack them.

Arngrim relays all this and more with biting wit, but she also bravely recounts her life's challenges: her struggle to survive a history of traumatic abuse, depression, and paralyzing shyness; the "secret" her father kept from her for twenty years; and the devastating loss of her "Little House husband" and best friend, Steve Tracy, to AIDS, which inspired her second career in social and political activism. Arngrim describes how Nellie Oleson taught her to be bold, daring, and determined, and how she is eternally grateful to have had the biggest little bitch on the prairie to show her the way.

About this edition

• Publisher: It Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0061962155
• ISBN 13: 9780061962158
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320