Bob Bekian from Thousand Oaks Ca., USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

Melissa Gilbert played Laura Ingalls Wilder for nine seasons on Little House on the Prairie, one of the defining child roles of 1970s American television, and later served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 2001 to 2005, negotiating on behalf of performers rather than just playing them. She briefly ran for Congress in 2016 and has written several memoirs.