‘Little House on the Prairie’ Star Charlotte Stewart Revealed Why Her Relationship With Jon Voight ‘Came To a Sudden Halt’
Charlotte Stewart became a famous face during her four seasons on Little House on the Prairie. Playing wholesome school teacher Eva Beadle on the historical drama, Stewart later wrote a memoir sharing personal details of her life during the experiential 1960s and 70s. The Little House alum had a brief romance with Oscar winner Jon Voight which abruptly ended after some unexpected publicity.
Charlotte Stewart met Jon Voight at a café
In her book, Little House in the Hollywood Hills: A Bad Girl’s Guide to Becoming Miss Beadle, Mary X, and Me, Stewart recalled meeting Voight for the first time in a California café.
“I was having breakfast on my own at a café on Santa Monica Boulevard and reading the newspaper,” Stewart wrote. “A good-looking blond guy at the table leaned over to say something like how impressed he was to see a pretty girl reading the business section.”
When Stewart admitted that she had actually been reading the comics section, the two shared a laugh and started talking. It took awhile for Stewart to realize the man she was speaking with was a famous actor.
“Jon was having a moment in the sun with the release of Midnight Cowboy,” the Little House star explained. “Jon was nominated for best actor, but wound up losing to John Wayne for True Grit. And here he was talking to me.”
‘Little House’ alum and Jon Voight dated ‘on and off’
After Stewart told Voight he could find her at her boutique, The Liquid Butterfly, the actor visited her and things heated up quickly. Yet after their coupling made headlines, the Coming Home star gave Stewart the brush off.
“I ended up going out with Jon and spent the night at his place,” Stewart remarked. “We saw each other on and off for about three months, but by January or February of 1971 our friendship came to a sudden halt when a gossip columnist wrote about one of our dates – a date that had taken place out in public.”
Though Stewart never told any member of the press about her status with Voight, she assumed he stopped calling her because he suspected she was trying to latch on to his fame for her own career.
“Anyone could have tipped the writer off,” the Little House actor wrote. “As soon as the column appeared, I never heard from Jon again. Though I can only speculate, I’m guessing he thought that I, or my PR rep, had contacted the columnist as a way of promoting my career by attempting to tie my wagon to his. It had certainly been done before… though not by me.”
Charlotte Stewart briefly met Angelina Jolie
Stewart didn’t take Voight’s ghosting personally and ran into him several years later in California.
“Before the year was out I heard Jon had gotten married,” she noted. “A few years after that I happened to walk by a restaurant in the San Fernando Valley and saw him sitting at a table near the window making sweet, funny faces to a baby in his arms.”
Turns out the infant he was holding was his daughter, a future Oscar winner.
“I tapped on the glass and smiled and waved,” Stewart remembered. “He gave me a great smile in response and waved Angelina Jolie’s tiny hand back at me.”
