Katherine MacGregor

Biography

She is best known for her comic performance as Harriet Oleson from 1974 to 1983 on the NBC television series Little House on the Prairie. As a child, her mother moved them to Denver, Colorado, where she lived until she moved to New York as a young adult. In the 1940s she was hired by the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in New York City as a dance instructor.

MacGregor's favorite description of her character in Little House came in a fan letter from Minnesota in the 1970s, in which Mrs. Oleson was described as "the touch of pepper in the sweetness of the show". In 1979, thanks to the popularity of Little House in Spain, MacGregor was invited to Madrid and appeared on RTVE's 625 Lineas program. After Little House on the Prairie, MacGregor withdrew from screen productions in favor of local theater. She also dedicated herself to her Hindu religion, and to teaching acting to children at the Wee Hollywood Vedanta Players, before finally retiring in the early 2000s.

Beginning in the 1950s, MacGregor worked in theatre on and off Broadway, and earned the uncredited part of 'a longshoreman's mother' in Elia Kazan's film, On the Waterfront (1954), starring Marlon Brando, the uncredited part of Alice Thorn in The Traveling Executioner (1970), and the part of Miss Boswell in The Student Nurses (1970). MacGregor also appeared in numerous episodes of various television series: Love of Life (1956), Play of the Week (1959), East Side/West Side (1963), Mannix (1970 & 1971), Emergency! (1972), Ironside (1972 & 1974), and All in the Family (1973), as well as the two 1981 "Heroes vs. Villains" episodes of Family Feud hosted by Richard Dawson. She also had roles in the TV movies, The Death of Me Yet (1971), The Girls of Huntington House (1973), and Tell Me Where It Hurts (1974).

She was briefly married to actor Bert Remsen, one month her junior, in 1949-50, and to actor, director and teacher Edward G. Kaye-Martin, 14 years her junior, from August 1969 to October 1970.