From child star to primetime anchor, Marketwatch.com‘s Jon Friedman writes about CNBC’s Melissa Francis. Francis, who played Cassandra Cooper Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, tells Friedman, “The only people who recognize me from [Little House] these days are CNBC viewers who are watching and suddenly make the connection…Then they say it’s nice to see a child actor who didn’t end up in rehab or robbing their local dry cleaner.”
Friedman writes, “there was another world after Walnut Grove. Francis subsequently enrolled at Harvard, worked for TV stations and finally joined CNBC four years ago. She established herself on the energy beat and in January took the reins of On the Money, which airs at 7 pmET.” While at Harvard, Francis interned for NBC’s longtime financial correspondent Mike Jensen. “He encouraged her to pursue a career as a TV business journalist — and gave her another good tip: He told her to lose the moniker ‘Missy.'”