'Little House on the Prairie’ star Alison Arngrim says she ‘basically won the child safety lottery’ by being on that show

Alison Arngrim, who famously played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie, talks to Yahoo Entertainment about her life as a child actor, and how she "basically won the child safety lottery" by being on the hit show.

Video Transcript

ALISON ARNGRIM: If you had to be on a series as a kid, if you got on "Little House on the Prairie," you had basically won the child safety lottery.

My home. My home is the best house in all of Walnut Grove. We have carpets in every room, [? bottom ?] carpets. We have three sets of dishes-- one for every day, one for Sunday, and one when someone--

I started working when I was well, five. My whole family were actors. My parents met in the theater. My father's Thor Arngrim. My mother's Norman MacMillan. My mother was the voice of "Casper, the Friendly Ghost," and "Gumby" and "Sweet Polly Purebreds" and "Davey and Goliath." So up until I was seven, I kind of, thought that everyone was on television.

I remember one of my first gigs, I think, really, was the Hunt's Ketchup commercial. Then I started working. I did little TV shows, commercials. Then I read for "Little House on the Prairie." And I read for the part of Laura, I read for the part of Mary. Everybody in Western civilization read for the part of Laura. It was like the search for Scarlett O'Hara, for eight-year-old Ann. I didn't get those. Thank God.

And then I came back just months and months and months later. And I read for the part of Nellie. So I go in. And there was Michael Landon and Kent McCray and Ed Friendly, all the original producers, and they're laughing hysterically. And then I left. And by the time we got home, which is like, less than half an hour, my agent was on the phone.

And it was done. He'd made a deal. And the wardrobe fitting was happening. And basically, it would have been literally the second I walked out the door. They said, yes, it's her. Just shut up, we're getting her. "Little House" was also very good as sets go, and certainly, as sets went in the 1970s.

I mean just on the news, they were talking about the website and the hotline at the Screen Actors Guild for sexual harassment. And there wasn't even sexual harassment law in the 1970s. That wasn't until '80s. There was like, nothing. So there was no one to call if something terrible happened to you. So it was pretty bad.

But "Little House" was good. I felt protected by the crew. I felt very much that if someone on the set had really bothered me, I could have gone to the crew. And they'd killed them. It wasn't like a set where it's all grown-ups and like, one or two kids. And it's like, the lead of the show was nine, Melissa Gilbert. So there was a focus on that, that people actually did think about our well-being.

I've talked to people my age who were on other TV shows at the same time. They did not feel safe. They had crew members catcalling, little teenage girls. aah. No. We didn't-- we didn't do that on "Little House." If you had to be on a series as a kid, if you got on "Little House on the Prairie," you had basically won the child safety lottery.

I've always been involved in charities and activism. I mean, as a kid on the show, I mean, we go to the Special Olympics. We go to Toys for Tots charities. And I was always like, me, me, me, first in line. When the National Association to Protect Children was formed, protect.org, they called me.

The guy who called me didn't even know that I had been abused as a child. We talked, and I said, absolutely, I want to do this. They asked me to be on the board of directors. And I said, yes. So I explained that I had been physically and sexually and emotionally abused as a small child. And that yes, I was very interested in their work.

And one of the first things we did was went to Sacramento. Because we found out that there was a loophole in the law, and it's in many states, and it is an exception for child predators who molest people they're related to, the incest exception, that in many states a person who was sexually abused as a child in a way that would get many, many years in prison, if they can say it's a relative, could plead out with this and have no jail time, no record even. The. record would be expunged.

We did get this changed. But it actually took us almost two years because there were people in Sacramento who thought it was a great idea and didn't want to change it. And I had to go to Sacramento with a bunch of other people. And we had to work with legislators and attorneys and the press.

And really, I had to go on Larry King on CNN. And we had to, kind of, raise holy hell to get them to actually change this rather egregious law. Remember there was that old line about the Wild West bank robber, Willie Sutton, why do you rob banks? That's where they keep the money.

Why when there is an arrest for someone who is preying upon children, is it a priest and a teacher and a swim coach and the youth counselor? That's where they keep the children. So people who are looking to abuse children will gravitate towards occupations and situations where they have free access. So becoming an agent, a manager, a photographer, et cetera, yeah, they're going to do that.

There are parents-- there are parents who are very protective. And then there are parents who are so desperate to have their child be in show business, they'll look the other way. The Screen Actors Guild now has a sexual harassment hotline and a sexual harassment thing on the website, which as I said, did not exist even a few years ago, where grown-ups can report being harassed.

But you can call it too. There's also a program called Looking Ahead that was done through the Actor's Fund. And it is for minors working in show business. It's a lot better now. There's a lot more legal protections in place and a lot more people aware of how nuts it can be but absolutely, can do more.

Whenever there's a lot of money involved, people will look the other way for a lot of crimes. When any situation, whether it's show business or politics or anything where there's a lot of money involved, and someone finds out hey, I think Joe might be a child predator, I think there's a problem, well, yeah but we're all making millions of dollars. So let's pretend that's not happening.

That happens all over the place. So we need to have-- just like they have now set up because of "Me Too" and all of the sexual harassment hotlines, and places for adults to call, there has to be a focus that kids can report if they're on a set and that there's protections.

They keep-- as I said, we've been ramping up the protections over the years. And it's so much better now than it was. Predators go where they can have access. And show business is a good place for them.