Melissa Gilbert and Patrick Labyorteaux have a long history together. From 1977 to 1981, they both starred in “Little House on the Prairie,” with Gilbert playing Laura Ingalls Wilder and Labyorteaux portraying Andrew “Andy” Garvey. His brother, Matthew, was also on the show, starring as Gilbert’s brother, Albert. So it makes sense that when she sat down with him on his podcast, she’d feel quite at ease spilling juicy info.
Their conversation ran the gamut from why the “Dancing With the Stars” alum loved being on stage ever since she was two years old, to the first time she talked to her biological father on the phone. But Gilbert also recalled a surreal story involving Liza Minnelli and Michael Jackson that’s almost too “Hollywood” to be real.
Both Michael Jackson and Liza Minnelli Crashed Her Table
She began her story by explaining that she and Rob Lowe were still a couple. She had attended one of Patrick Swayze’s dance shows with her agent, Michael Black, who was also Lowe’s agent. After the show, they’d gone to Spago to meet up with Lowe and Andrew McCarthy.
“And then there was a commotion at the door, and Liza Minnelli came in and beelined and sat down at our table, and was hiding alcoholic beverages — cuz she wasn’t supposed to be drinking — by putting them in front of me,” she recalled to Labyorteaux. “So at one point I had four wines and three screwdrivers in front of me.”
When Minnelli’s sister, Lorna Tuft, came in looking for her, Minnelli hid under their table, drinking. And then Michael Jackson entered the restaurant and sat at their table. Gilbert admitted that she was starting to get nervous and wanted to leave, but Lowe convinced her to stay.
After dinner, when they were deciding where to go, Jackson suddenly spoke up after not saying a word all night. “You can come to my house, I got a llama,” she remembered. Instead, the group ended up at Sammy Davis Jr.’s house.
Melissa Gilbert’s Bizarre Night Ended With Sammy Davis Jr. Making Her a Drink
Gilbert finished her crazy tale by quickly filling Labyorteaux in on the night’s ending. At Davis’s house, “he’s screening ‘A Soldier Story,’ and every African-American actor in Hollywood is in the screening room,” she said.
She ended up in the billiard room, where Davis was making drinks. After mentioning to him that he knew her grandfather, Harry Crane, whom he referred to as Hesh, he asked her what she was drinking.
“So he makes me a drink. He goes, ‘Hey, you want to play pool?’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m really bad at it, I don’t think so.’ He said, ‘I have one eye, you’ll win!’”
