On this week's motivation monday, I'm talking to Alison Arngrim. New York Times Best Selling author of Confessions of A Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated, Alison Arngrim is best known to viewers world-wide for her portrayal of the incredibly nasty “Nellie Oleson” on the much loved, long running hit television series Little House On The Prairie, and continues to amuse audiences through her many film, television, stage and multi-media appearances. Her one woman show Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, which started at Club Fez in New York in 2002, has now become a world-wide phenomenon, having been performed to packed houses in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Green Bay, San Francisco, Seattle, and in France, where Arngrim performs entirely in French to standing room only crowds in her all-French version titled: Confessions d’une Garce de La Prairie and La Malle aux Tresors de Nellie Oleson. As a stand-up comedian, Arngrim has headlined at nightclubs such as the Laugh Factory, the Comedy Store and the Improv in Los Angeles; as well as the Laurie Beechman Theatre in New York and assorted comedy venues across the United States and Canada. She is currently starring in two comedy series pilots: Life Interrupted, as the ex-wife of commercial child star Mason Reese, with Erin Murphy, (“Bewitched”) as her new wife and Dawn Wells, (“Gilligan’s Island), as her mother, as well as, C.P.R. – Child Performers Resurrection Talent Agency, as an ex-child star gone wrong, trying to save herself and her assorted misfit cohorts by opening a talent agency. Arngrim has mocked her status as an “ex-child star” on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, during their month-long parody, “Hollywood Survivor” and continues to be a frequent interview subject on everything from A&E, “E! Entertainment, TV Land and VH-1, to CNN and the Travel Channel. The TV Land network honored her undying image as TV’s worst bitch, by declaring her the winner of their 2006 award for, “Character Most Desperately In Need Of A Time Out.” She starred in the heartwarming, gay, Christmas cult classic, Make the Yuletide Gay, as the overbearing “Heather Mancuso.” Her other television and film appearances include, Livin’ the Dream, Tinder & Grinder, The Bilderberg Club, For the Love of May with Ru Paul and Patricia Neal, and The Last Place On Earth with Billy Dee Williams and Phyllis Diller. In 2007, she began her foray into French cinema with the role of “Edith” in the French detective comedy, Jean Pierre Mocky’s Le Deal. Her stage work includes, The Vagina Monologs, Sirena: Queen of the Tango, Dear Brutus, The Wool Gatherer, the French bedroom farce, In One Bed And Out The Other, Michael Kearns’ AIDS/US II, “Rita” in the 2005 GLAAD Award nominated production of Last Summer At Bluefish Cove, the somewhat off kilter “Reverend Pat Miass” in Joni and Gina’s Wedding, and the Ovation Award Nominated musical-drama, Flirting with Morty, as the abusive, trashy and tragic Ray Lee. In her spare time, she takes tourists on the rollicking comedy outing, Nasty Nellie’s Tour of Hollywood, (featured at Dearly Departed Tours), where she simultaneously enlightens and amuses passengers with behind the scenes tales from both Hollywood history and her own life. Offstage, Arngrim has been a dedicated and compassionate AIDS activist for nearly three decades, volunteering for AIDS Project Los Angeles and Tuesday's Child, an organization assisting children and families affected by HIV and AIDS. In addition, Arngrim currently serves as California Chair, National Spokesperson and Founding Board Member on the National Advisory Board of The National Association to Protect Children, or PROTECT.org, fighting to give children a legal and political voice in the war against child abuse.
