Karen Grassle: (on acting before live audiences in the theater) The theater is the actor's medium. There's nothing between us and them. We can feel them.
Karen Grassle: (in an interview with Barnaby Marriott and speaking on acting in the "Little House on the Prairie" episode "A Matter of Faith") "A Matter of Faith" was written for me so that I could show off a greater range. I think Mike (Michael Landon) was hoping I could be nominated for and win an Emmy. I learned a great deal about acting for the camera from that show.
Karen took over the role of Daisy in the traveling production of Driving Miss Daisy when another famed TV "mother", Michael Learned (Olivia Walton of The Waltons), became ill.
Gene Grassle, Karen's father, managed a service station (later he became a realtor) and his wife worked in a restaurant. Karen's mother suffered four miscarriages before Karen's birth.
Karen was an excellent student. She was valedictorian of her high school graduating class and received a Fulbright scholarship to study in the United Kingdom after finishing college at Berkeley.
Karen Grassle has done little movie work. She acted in Harry's War (1981) and had a small role in the Kevin Costner movie Wyatt Earp (1994).
Grassle was an understudy for Blythe Danner in Butterflies Are Free on Broadway.
Because of the pioneer flavor of many episodes of Little House on the Prairie, Karen Grassle is enshrined in the "Hall of Great Performers" at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Karen Grassle was trained in theater, her early post-collegiate work included an acting workshop in San Francisco and a fellowship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She went on to head the Voice Department at the Royal Academy.
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