<P> He was born as Steven Crumrine into a Jewish family . He attended Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, and the Theatre Department at Los Angeles City College in Los Angeles, California, as well as the Harvey Lembeck Comedy Workshop . </P> <P> Tracy is best known for his recurring role as Percival Dalton in the television series Little House on the Prairie in the early 1980s . </P> <P> After the end of the series, Tracy maintained a friendship with his on - screen wife Alison Arngrim (Nellie Oleson). Arngrim and Tracy were very close while filming on the set . During the series, there were rumors that he and Arngrim were having a love affair, but Arngrim says that was untrue . Arngrim has also stated that she was the only one on the set of who knew that Tracy was gay . </P> <P> He appeared in several films and other television programs from 1977 to 1986, including Quincy, M.E., The Jeffersons, and National Lampoon's Class Reunion . Six months before his death, he performed in the theater piece AIDS / US: Portraits in Personal Courage in Los Angeles . The piece featured true stories of having AIDS or losing family members to AIDS, with half the cast being heterosexual, at a time when AIDS still was stereotyped as affecting only gay men . Tracy was the only professional actor in the production, as all other participants were non-actors telling their stories on stage because "they wanted to say something ." When the play closed in August 1986, the closure was intended to be a hiatus to allow the cast to grieve the death of a cast member and cope with the deteriorating health of two others </P>

Who played nellie's husband on little house on the prairie