Michael Landon's Forgotten First Wife Remarried—then Heartbreak Struck

Before any fame and fortune, "Little House on the Prairie" star Michael Landon was married to Dodie Levy-Fraser. The two tied the knot in 1956 and immediately became a family as Landon adopted Levy-Fraser's son from a previous marriage. During those early years, Landon was still looking for his big break as an actor while Fraser worked as a legal secretary. Landon struck gold and landed a role on "Bonanza" in 1959, launching his career. Along the way, the couple adopted two more children, but unfortunately their marriage was crumbling. The two divorced in 1962, and Landon went on to score big on "Little House on the Prairie" and "Highway to Heaven."

While his ex-wife wasn't in the limelight, the life that followed their divorce was tragic for Levy-Fraser. Landon moved on to his second marriage within a year of their divorce. Love didn't hit Levy-Fraser until 1976, when she married Dr. Peter Anthony Lake. Lake was a young, ambitious neurosurgeon making waves in his industry as the first director of medical education and research at Eisenhower Medical Center in California. However, a few short months after their marriage, Lake sadly passed away at only 36 years old after battling an illness.

Unfortunately, that's not where the tragedy stopped for Dodie Levy-Fraser. After her divorce from Michael Landon, Levy-Fraser received full custody of all three children. As the couple struggled to keep their relationship afloat in their last year of marriage, they adopted their son, Jason, as an infant. Landon's publicist, Harry Flynn, told People, "Michael was not in favor of bringing another baby into a home where he wasn't that happy anyway." Shortly after Levy-Fraser was awarded custody, she decided that she could no longer care for all three children. She surrendered Jason to the Smith family, separating the two for the rest of their lives.

The Smiths were empty nesters with grown adult children, eager to build a family again. Their daughter Dorothy recalled their first moments with 3-year-old Jason to People. "When he first came, he couldn't even put sentences together. ... The thing I remember is that he never mentioned a mother or a daddy, and he never cried for one." According to one of Landon's close friends, record producer Nik Venet, Landon was aware of the situation. "It was one of the few things he never talked about. And I believe the reason is that he didn't have a clue how to handle it." Over the course of his life, Landon went on to father nine children in total, six biological and three adopted. Jason, for a brief period of time, was a Landon as well but didn't press the family for money after Landon's death in 1991.