Then in 2000, when a reunion for Mary and Rhoda was announced, a TV writer for the Chicago Tribune decided he was going to be the one to finally track down Gerritsen and get some answers about why she quit her promising career.ĭeclaring Gerritsen his "first love," the writer shared that his crush began because Gerritsen played "a romantically inexperienced somewhat awkward 7 th grader on The Mary Tyler Moore Show" at a time when the writer himself was "a romantically inexperienced somewhat awkward 7 th grader."
Where the heck did she go, they wondered.įor years, fans in web forums pondered what happened to Gerritsen, but she seemed determined to stay out of the public eye.
Gerritsen returned to the role of Bess in the Phyllis spin-off, but then abruptly stopped acting in 1978 at the age of 21.īecause Gerritsen showed such promise and many younger TV fans grew up identifying with her onscreen, her disappearance became one of the biggest mysteries of all the child stars that stepped out of the spotlight. Quickly after gaining attention on Gunsmoke and The Doris Day Show, Gerritsen joined the cast of the 1969 sitcom My World and Welcome to It.Īfter that, her TV career took off when she got cast in a prominent role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970.Īs Bess Lindstrom, Gerritsen played teen daughter to Cloris Leachman, sharing scenes with two of the funniest sitcom actors in the business by the time she was 13 years old. This final episode was an impressible vehicle to show off her remarkable acting talents. Gerritsen actually started her acting career with an earlier appearance on Gunsmoke in 1968, and "Jenny" would become her fourth and final guest spot on the hit TV Western. It’s rare for a Gunsmoke episode to center on a child actor, but in "Jenny," 10-year-old Lisa Gerritsen proved she had the dramatic chops to carry the story.
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