Leslie Landon Matthews (néeLandon) is an American former actress. She had a supporting role on the Little House on the Prairie television series, in which her father, Michael Landon, played the lead.
Matthews was born in Los Angeles. She portrayed schoolteacher Etta PlumonLittle House on the Prairie from 1982 to 1984. She also made small guest appearances in four other episodes of Little House between 1975 and 1981.[citation needed]
Landon's parents are actor-director Michael and Lynn Landon.[1] Landon has eight siblings, including two brothers, Michael Landon Jr. and Christopher Landon, and a sister, Shawna Leigh Landon, from her parents' marriage. From her mother's first marriage, Landon has another half-sister, Cheryl Lynn Landon. From her father's marriage to Cindy Landon, she has a half-sister, Jennifer Landon, and a half-brother, Sean Matthew Landon. She has an adopted brother, Mark Landon (now deceased), and a half-brother, Josh Landon, both from her father's first marriage to Dodie Fraser.[2] Her paternal grandfather was Jewish[3] and her paternal grandmother was Catholic. Her father was raised Jewish.[4]
Landon married Brian Matthews in 1990. Her eldest daughter, born in 1993, Rachel Matthews, is also an actress,[5] with her film debut in Happy Death Day, directed by her uncle Christopher.[6]
When Children Grieve: For Adults to Help Children Deal with Death, Divorce, Pet Loss, Moving, and Other Losses. By John W. James, Russell Friedman, Dr. Leslie Matthews. HarperCollins, 2001.
^"His Early Days Were Fun". Philadelphia Daily News. July 2, 1991. In a 1985 interview, Landon claimed he ate lunch alone at Collingswood High School, that he never had a date as a teen-ager because no Christian father in the town would allow his daughter to go out with a Jew.
^Landon Wilson, Cheryl (1992). I Promised My Dad: An Intimate Portrait of Michael Landon by His Eldest Daughter. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 28.
