Michael Landon's acting in "I'll Be Waving As You Drive Away" must be highly praised. In the scene where he tells Mary she is going blind, it's obvious he is REALLY crying. The giveaway is that his nose is running heavily. Shirley Temple has written that she thought her crying scenes were pretty good but always reproached herself on her dry nose. I don't think this detail could have, or even would have, been faked, and that Landon (who was at least as appearance conscious as most actors if not moreso) was willing to appear in an extreme closeup like this says a lot. Melissa Sue Anderson deserved her Emmy nomination. The remarkable thing with all the dramatic performances on this show is that her nomination was the only one.
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