Richard Bull, a character actor best known for portraying shopkeeper and put-upon spouse Nels Oleson on LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIER, died Monday at the Motion Picture & Television Fund's hospital in Woodland Hills, fund spokeswoman Jaime Larkin said. A resident of what was once known as the Motion Picture and TV Home, Bull died of natural causes after being hospitalized with pneumonia, Larkin said. He was 89.
Bull was among the supporting cast of the 1974-83 NBC series inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder's novels about her 19th century prairie family's life. Melissa Gilbert played the author as a young girl, and Michael Landon, who died in 1991, starred as her father.