Whatever Happened To Albert Actor Matthew Labyorteaux?

Matthew Laborieu played Albert Quinn Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie from 1978 to 1983, after which he appeared in one of the ongoing TV movies. But the fate of his character remains somewhat mysterious. Likewise, many fans of the series may be wondering what happened to Laborio himself. Fortunately, the actor has been working fairly consistently since Little House on the Prairie went off the air.

The series remains one of the best Western television shows of all time, even if it was one of the hit series of the 1970s that audiences don’t quite remember today. Labyorteaux joined during Season 5 as the adopted son of Charles (Michael Landon) and Caroline Ingalls (Karen Grassle) Albert, who had a rough upbringing before joining the Ingalls family. He spent his youth in orphanages, where he was bullied before running away to live on his own. In Season 5, Episode 1, “As Long As We’re Together”, Charles and Caroline visit the town of Winoka and discover the young man is stealing. Instead of turning him over to the authorities, the couple returned him to Walnut Grove, and he remained with the show for its nine seasons. He then appeared in a sequel TV movie called Little House on the Prairie: Look Back to Yesterday, although it was not Albert’s most exciting story, as the character developed leukemia.

In an earlier episode of Season 9, we learned that Albert returned to Walnut Grove 20 years after the series finale to work as the town doctor, even though he appeared to be on death’s door in “Look Back To Yesterday.” However, he was alive until the final scene of the TV movie, so Albert may have survived. Meanwhile, Laborio himself continued his strong career.

Matthew Laboureaux, himself an adoptee, overcame similar hardships to his character on “Little House on the Prairie,” where he was born with a hole in his heart and exhibited autistic behaviors according to his adoptive father, Frankie. By the age of five, he was beginning to overcome his problems, and began auditioning for, and eventually was cast in, “Little House on the Prairie.”

“Little House” was arguably one of those TV shows that should have ended sooner than it did, but that meant that Labyorteaux remained a major series star until 1983. After that, he continued to act, appearing in multiple shows throughout the 1980s. One of his biggest jobs came with a lead role in the CBS sci-fi adventure series, “Whiz Kids,” which began the same year that “Little House” ended, and ran for 18 episodes until 1984, with Labyorteaux playing one of the leads, Richie Adler.

Unfortunately, CBS canceled the series after one season, but Laborteaux continued working. Later in the decade, he appeared in two episodes of the 1989 series Night Court and appeared alongside Martin Sheen in the 1986 TV movie Shattered Spirits. That same year, he appeared as Paul Conway in Wes Craven’s sci-fi horror film Deadly Friend. Other TV movies came in the form of “The Last to Go” in 1991 and “Barbarians at the Gate” in 1993.

Along with his acting career, Labyorteaux also began competing in competitive video game tournaments. At the age of 15, he became the national “Pac-Man” champion after scoring 1.2 million during a tournament in Los Angeles. He also participated in the “Centipede” qualifier in Chicago and told Softline magazine in 1982 that he had been playing video games since “they were first introduced” and became addicted to “Missile Command” in the arcades.

After maintaining a decent acting career in the 1980s and early 1990s, Matthew Laborieu turned to voice acting, lending his vocal talents to several animated series and films. It began in 1995 when he voiced characters named Rob and Chuck in an episode of Nickelodeon’s “Aaahh!!! Real Monsters”, after which he went on to provide additional voices for Disney’s 1998 film “Mulan” and Christopher Reeve’s 2006 animated sports comedy “Everyone’s Hero.” From 2005 to 2008, Labyorteaux voiced Jaden Yuki and the Supreme King in “Yu-Gi-Oh! GX”, a spin-off of the original “Yu-Gi-Oh!” The series aired on Cartoon Network and 4KidsTV in North America. He reprized the role of Jaden Yuki in 2011’s “Yu-Gi-Oh!: Bonds Beyond Time,” but this wouldn’t be the last time he returned to the “Yu-Gi-Oh!” universe.

Labyorteaux has also worked as a video game voice actor, combining his love of entertainment with his craft. He provided additional voices for the “.hack” series between 2003 and 2004 and in 2012 played Gold 5 and Padawan #2 in “Kinect Star Wars”. His most important video game role was also his most important voice role. In 2017, he voiced the characters Jaden Yuki and The Supreme King in the digital collectible card game “Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links”.

Labyorteux has come a long way since filming Little House on the Prairie. His last film project was in 2018 when he was part of the additional voice cast for the Netflix animated sci-fi film “Next Gen”. His last listed project was the 2022 video game “Yu-Gi-Oh! Cross Duel”, in which he reprized the role of Jaden Yuki. Today, he remains one of the few main actors still alive from Little House on the Prairie.