April 2011 A to Z Blogging Challenge

What is the A to Z Challenge? It’s blogging a letter of the alphabet every day the month of April (with Sundays off for good behavior.) It began April 1st, with the letter A and ends April 30th, with the letter Z. You can click here to see who else is participating in this challenge.

Today's post is for the letter:

N is for perhaps one of the most menacing childhood villains ever created, Nellie Oleson. Nellie was created by Laura Ingalls Wilder in her classic Little House books. Historically speaking, Nellie Oleson was a combination of three girls from Wilder's life: Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters, and Stella Gilbert. Owens was the primary basis for Nellie Oleson. She lived in Walnut Grove with her parents and her younger brother, Willie. Mr. and Mrs. Owens owned a mercantile in town.

In the 1970's, after a successful run on Bonanza, Michael Landon was approached by Ed Friendly to star in and produce a pilot based upon Wilder's Little House books. Alison Arngrim auditioned for the role of Laura Ingalls, and then later Mary Ingalls, but it would be her portrayal of spoiled, nasty Nellie Oleson that would make her a household name.

From the very first episode where she appears (Country Girls), Nellie Oleson and Laura Ingalls don't get along. She looks down on Laura and her sister, Mary, because they are country girls. The hem of their dresses are a bit too short and they can't even afford a slate and a slate pencil.

Dealing with her own real life difficulties, Arngrim embraced her character, and molded Nellie into a girl everyone loved to hate. Here's just a short list of some of the things Nellie did:

• After Mr. Ingalls fashions a special shoe for Olga, a girl with a lame leg, Nellie insists all the girls go wading in Plum Creek, so that Olga would have to take off her shoes and be left out of the fun.
• She uses Thomas Edison's new talking machine to secretly record Laura sharing her feelings for a boy. She then plays the recording in front of the class.
• After Laura sells her pony to Mr. Oleson so she can buy a stove for her mother on Christmas, Nellie abuses the animal, which causes a serious riding accident. Nellie pretends to be crippled and Laura feels like the accident is all her fault.
• Laura steals Nellie's music box and accidentally breaks it. When Nellie finds out, she turns Laura into her slave in exchange for her silence.
• Nellie ends up tutoring Andy Garvey, whose mother is the new teacher in Walnut Grove. She gets Andy to steal the answers to a test, and then blackmails him into stealing answers for more tests.
• After Laura sabotages one of Nellie's dates, she gets revenge by lying to Laura about what is on the exam for a teaching certificate. Laura fails the test miserably.

But even Nellie has to grow up some time. When Percival Dalton arrives in Walnut Grove,  he quickly captures her heart. Not putting up with her spoiled brat nonsense, a new Nellie is born out of her love for him.

Arngrim managed to turn the years of playing nasty Nellie into a successful live stand-up comedy act titled, "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch." In the spring of 2010, she released her memoir of the same title, which made Library Journal's list of Best Books in 2010. Confessions of a Prairie Bitch is also an Amazon bestseller.

Many thanks to Alison for her portrayal of Nellie Oleson. We wish her continued success.

Who are some of your favorite book and/or TV villains?