Katherine MacGregor as Harriet Oleson
The gossip queen, Nellie’s mother, and Nel’s wife, Harriet Oleson, co-owned the Oleson’s Mercantile. Her role was intended to be an occasional guest character, but her humorous and mean-spirited performance was so well-received that she became a regular on the series. But after the Little House ended, so was her on-screen acting.
She decided to do theatre and taught children’s theatre before she died in 2018. She was 93.