Laura Ingalls Wilder biopic challenges 'Dawson's Creek' actress

MIKE HUGHES GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Meredith Monroe settles into some long-ago territory Sunday.

Here is a modern actress, fresh from the teen angst of "Dawson's Creek." Suddenly, she returns to a frontier role she's done once before, capturing the life of the author of "Little House on the Prairie."

"Beyond the Prairie II: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder Continues" airs at 9 p.m. March 17 on CBS. It starts in 1894 with Wilder as a young wife, beginning the 45-day trip from South Dakota to Missouri.

On the surface, Monroe needed a quick transformation.

"We are so loose now with our bodies and with our vocabularies," she says. "Women were in a different place then."

She adjusted for the role, still, the bigger changes go deeper into the pioneer soul.

Early in "Beyond," Wilder tells a friend about her troubles. The crops were battered by hail, the house burned down, her baby son died, her husband, Almanzo "Manly" Wilder (Walton Goggins), was partly crippled by diphtheria.

"I was in awe," Monroe says. "You'll do a scene, they'll say 'cut,' and you go get a bottle of water and relax. Then you think, 'What would it have been like back then, when there was nowhere to turn?' "

It was the life Laura Ingalls Wilder knew in frontier territory.

Her dad was a dreamer, forever seeking a better farm. She spent her childhood in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas and South Dakota, often far from any town.

At 27, she was ready for another move. Wilder headed to Missouri with Manly and their daughter, Rose. Hidden in her writing desk, inside the covered wagon, was the family fortune. That was $100 -- all of it made by Laura from her job at a dressmaker's shop -- to buy a farm.

This was a life Monroe can relate to in one way: Like Wilder, she spent a childhood on the move.

Her dad was in the computer business and the family moved -- Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and more -- every few years.

"It probably brought me out of my shyness," Monroe says. "My dad would say, 'OK, go make new friends.' "

That's the wandering, Laura spirit. In 1998, Monroe got the lead role in CBS' original movie, "Beyond the Prairie."

But the film sat on a shelf for almost two years. CBS wasn't sure people would watch a period piece. Then it was released in 2000.

"All of a sudden, it was 'Whoa!' " Monroe says. "It was No. 1 in the ratings (among TV movies), with 24 million viewers.

"People called and said 'CBS is ecstatic. They want a sequel.' "

That was fine with Monroe, except that she was busy with "Dawson's Creek" for WB where she played Andie, the newcomer (appropriately) who stayed cheery despite family tragedies.

The sequel script was finally ready, just as Monroe was finishing her "Dawson's" stint. After a quick plane ride, she had to transform from 21st century teen to 19th century pioneer woman.

Among other things, that meant learning woodsman skills.

In real life, the new Wilder land had to be cleared. The trees provided wood for the house and firewood that was sold in town, at 50 cents a wagon.

At times, Laura worked the crosscut saw with Manly. When he was too sick, she tried an ax.

So Monroe -- a child of the computer world -- and her costar had to learn how to chop a tree. "We were doing pretty good, by the end," she insists.

Laura Ingalls Wilder used to cut trees in the daytime and write in journals at night. Still, she rarely showed her words to anyone.

"She didn't really become a writer until after her daughter did," Monroe says of Rose Wilder Lane.

Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 when her first book, "Little House in the Big Woods" was published in 1932. She lived for 25 more years, seeing her stories draw huge audiences.

"Today, our way of living and learning is easier," she once said. "But the real things haven't changed."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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