Michael Landon was an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza, Charles Ingles in Little House in the Prairie, and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven. Landon appeared on the cover of TV Guide 22 Times, Second Only, to Lissile Ball. On April 2, 1991, Landon began to suffer from a severe headache while he was on his skiing vacation in Utah. Three days later, he was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, which had begun to impact the tissues and blood vessels around his pancreas. The cancer was inoperable and terminal, and on July 1, later that year he died in Malibu, California. Michael Landon was only 54 years old.