Michael Landon not only played a father on Little House on the Prairie, but was also a dad to nine children in real life: sons Mark, Josh, Michael Jr., Christopher and Sean and daughters Cheryl, Leslie, Shawna and Jennifer.
His firstborn, Mark, was born in 1948 to Michael’s first wife, Dodie Levy-Fraser; the actor adopted Mark when he and Dodie got married in 1956, and the couple later adopted son Josh together.
Michael also shared five children with ex-wife Marjorie Lynn Noe. He adopted her child Cheryl, and the pair had Leslie, Michael Jr., Shawna and Christopher together. The actor wed wife Cindy Landon in 1983, and the two had daughter Jennifer the same year. His youngest child and second with Cindy, Sean, was born in 1986.
When Michael was 54, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died on July 1, 1991 — three months after publicly announcing his diagnosis. At the time of his death, he lived with his third wife, Cindy, and two of their children — the youngest, Sean, was only a toddler at the time.
“He was a busy man burning the candle at both ends,” Michael’s daughter Leslie told PEOPLE in 2021, on the 30th anniversary of his death. “I think his own health got put on the back burner.”
“It’s so hard for us to believe 30 years have gone by,” she added. “Sometimes it feels like just yesterday that he was here. But I think that he would be so thrilled to see his loved ones holding up his legacy.”
In the days before his death, Michael gathered all of his children at his home in Malibu, California, according to the 2019 show Autopsy: The Last Hours of…. While they all kept vigil in his bedroom, Michael asked for privacy in his final moments. “I love you all very much, but would you all go downstairs and give me some time with Cindy?” Michael asked.
In 2021, Leslie told PEOPLE that as much as her dad created entertainment for other families, Michael also prioritized spending quality time with his own family.
“I feel like the takeaway was loving one another and accepting people for who they are,” she explained. “I think he was very proud of the fact that he could bring families together to watch entertainment that was going to bring a wide range of emotions.”
Here is everything to know about Michael Landon’s nine children.
Michael had a large blended family of five sons and four daughters
Michael was married three times throughout his life. When he married Dodie in 1956, he adopted Dodie’s son from her first marriage, Mark. The couple also adopted son Josh.
Michael divorced Dodie in 1962 and married Marjorie in 1963. The actor adopted Marjorie’s daughter Cheryl. Together, the couple welcomed Leslie, Michael Jr., Shawna and Christopher. Michael and Marjorie divorced in 1982.
In 1983, the Highway to Heaven star married Cindy, a makeup artist on Little House on the Prairie. Together, they had daughter Jennifer and son Sean.
Michael’s illness made his children learn to prioritize their own health
Speaking to PEOPLE on the 30th anniversary of her father’s death, Leslie explained that all her siblings are careful about their health, prioritizing early detection of cancer or disease, because they learned a hard lesson from their father’s sudden decline.
“Because we knew how my dad was with his own health, we kids do the opposite,” she told PEOPLE in 2021. “We’re like, ‘Something doesn’t seem right, let’s look into it.’ Information is power and it allows you to make choices about your health when you know what you’re dealing with. Fear tends to paralyze people.”
In fact, she said, doctors found a small, cancerous tumor on her brother Christopher’s kidney in 2021 and were able to remove it before it became a more serious issue because he got checked early.
Cheryl inspired Highway to Heaven
In 1973, Cheryl was involved in a terrible car accident. “She was coming home from a fraternity-sorority gathering with four friends in a little Volkswagen, and they were struck by a Ford going in excess of 80 miles an hour,” Michael told PEOPLE in 1985. “It killed everyone but her, and it broke everything in her — all her ribs, her neck, you name it.”
In the aftermath of the accident, Michael said he made a promise that if Cheryl recovered, he “would do my best to make a product to help people.”
Years later, inspiration for Highway to Heaven struck when he was sitting in traffic on the way to pick up his kids. “Everyone was honking their horns and cursing … and I thought it would be good to do a show where people could see how much better and healthier it is to go through life being nice,” he told PEOPLE in 1985.
Michael worked with many of his kids on his shows
Besides acting in Little House on the Prairie, Michael also produced the show and directed many episodes, often including his children in roles.
Michael Jr. appeared in an episode of Little House, Shawna had roles in the TV movie Little House Years and an episode of the original series, and Leslie starred in several episodes of the show and some of the TV movies it inspired.
Michael also wrote and directed a made-for-TV movie, Us, and cast his son Mark — Michael wrapped production on the project shortly before his death in 1991.
Michael Jr. made a movie about his father
Michael Jr. works in movies, writing, directing and producing feature films and TV movies, including the 2007 films The Velveteen Rabbit and The Last Sin Eater.
In 1999, he aired his made-for-TV movie, Michael Landon: The Father I Knew. In it, Michael Jr. depicted the difficult times his family faced, especially when his father left Marjorie and their children to marry Cindy, as well as his reconciliation with Michael later in life.
Christopher is a director and producer of horror movies
Christopher has made a name for himself in Hollywood in the horror genre, writing, directing and producing films like Freaky, We Have a Ghost and Happy Death Day 2U.
In August 2023, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Christopher was slated to direct Scream 7, the next film in the Scream franchise.
While he never appeared in any of his father’s projects, Christopher did co-write the screenplay for the 2021 TV movie Highway to Heaven, inspired by his father’s show.
Jennifer stars on Yellowstone
Jennifer, who often goes by Jen, has played the pink-haired Teeter on seasons 3 through 5 of Yellowstone. She, as well as other stars from the show like Piper Perabo, were featured in PEOPLE’S 2023 Beautiful Issue. In the corresponding interview, Jen joked that it was the first time in years she had put on makeup.
Jen has also had a long career as an actress, making her screen debut in an episode of Highway to Heaven in 1989 with her dad. She went on to appear in almost 500 episodes of As the World Turns, and had roles on The Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives and FBI: Most Wanted.
Getting the part on Yellowstone was “really healing” for her, Jen told Cowgirl Magazine in 2023, because she watched her mother experience a terrible horseback riding accident when she was young, and it stopped her from riding.
“My mom rode hunter-jumpers, and that accident was horrible timing,” Jen said. “I was seven and we were in Arizona getting a new horse, just after my pops had died and my mom was thirty-four years old with two young children … It [riding for the show] was really healing on one level … each season I ride a different horse and by the end of filming I’m really attached to it.”
Shawna and Sean work together
Shawna and her younger brother Sean are both realtors in luxury real estate in Los Angeles, and have said Michael and their upbringing inspired their careers.
Shawna’s LinkedIn bio reads, “Shawna Landon knows a lot about big houses in Hollywood. As the daughter of a beloved actor and filmmaker, she has a unique perspective on luxury properties and estates.”
Sean’s bio page on the Douglas Elliman Real Estate website has a similar sentiment. “Sean Landon was born and raised in Malibu with deep familial ties to this special beach side community,” the bio reads.
Michael’s granddaughter Rachel Matthews is an actress
Rachel Matthews, the daughter of Leslie and her husband Brian Matthews, made her screen debut in her uncle Christopher’s 2017 movie Happy Death Day.
Since then, she’s reprised that role in Happy Death Day 2U, voiced a role in Frozen II and appeared in movies like Do Revenge.
The family spoke about their grief over Michael’s death
The close-knit family was rocked when Michael died in 1991 but leaned on each other for support. The older siblings, especially, helped care for the younger ones, as Jen and Sean were both under 10 when Michael died.
“Dad loved to bring in fantasy play and pretending, which is a lot of what we do with the little ones still,” Leslie told PEOPLE in 1992, a year after Michael’s death. “There are games that I play with them that Dad taught Mike Jr. and me when we were little — like African safari in the pool.”
Michael’s eldest, Mark (who died in 2009), was in his 40s when his father died. “He really showed us how to handle death,” he told PEOPLE. “I’d want to go with dignity, like he did.”
“You could say a thousand goodbyes,” added Christopher, who was 15 at the time of Michael’s death, “and it would never be enough.”
One of Michael’s on-screen children felt his loss, too. In a 2022 essay for PanCAN, Michael’s Little House on the Prairie costar Melissa Gilbert wrote about how 31 years later, she still thinks about her TV dad.
“He was my mentor and one of the greatest influences on my life,” she wrote. Gilbert played Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Michael played Wilder’s father, Pa. “Mike was also a husband, brother, father, grandfather and friend when he died those 31 years ago. His death left an enormous hole in the lives of those of us who knew him personally.”
Cheryl wrote books about and inspired by her father
In 1992, Cheryl wrote a memoir titled I Promised My Dad: An Intimate Portrait of Michael Landon by His Eldest Daughter. The book chronicled Michael’s life at home with his family, including his decision to leave Cheryl’s mother, Marjorie for his third wife, Cindy.
Cheryl published another book inspired by her father, the 2001 Michael Landon’s Legacy: 7 Keys to Supercharging Your Life, which detailed her spiritual philosophy through the lens of Michael’s deathbed message, “Love one another.” For many years, she has been a motivational speaker and lecturer.
In a 2023 interview with The Coronado News, Cheryl explained that she didn’t know about the promise Michael made after her 1973 car accident. “I looked at him [on his deathbed] and said, ‘you made this promise over my life?’ ” she recounted to the outlet. “And he squeezed my hand; he said: ‘We don’t know how to love each other; we’ve forgotten.’ ”
Her decision to become a motivational speaker was inspired by that revelation. She recalled thinking, “What could I give this man who has given me the world?” and decided to spread Michael’s message of love as his legacy.