To millions of Little House on the Prairie fans, Charlotte Stewart will always be Miss Beadle.

She was the kind, soft-spoken schoolteacher standing at the front of the Walnut Grove classroom.

But years before she stepped onto the Little House set, Stewart was living a completely different life in 1960s Los Angeles.

And one of the people who became surprisingly close to her was Jim Morrison of The Doors.

Stewart owned a clothing boutique called Liquid Butterfly near Elektra Records, the label behind The Doors. Morrison began appearing around the shop, and the two gradually became friends.

Soon they were having lunches and going out for drinks together.

Stewart has said Morrison trusted her because she wasn’t chasing his fame or trying to turn their friendship into something more conventional.

Their relationship, however, wasn’t quite as innocent as Miss Beadle fans might imagine.

Stewart has described them as “friends with benefits,” while stressing that she never wanted Morrison to become her boyfriend or husband.

Then came the extraordinary chapter she would remember for the rest of her life.

In 1969, while Morrison was facing serious legal trouble following the infamous Doors concert in Miami, he told Stewart he needed to get away.

So they got into a car and left Los Angeles.

They drove north along California’s Highway 1, visiting places including San Simeon and Cambria during a spontaneous four-day road trip.

For a brief moment, one of rock music’s most famous and troubled young stars was simply traveling the California coast with the woman who would later become Walnut Grove’s beloved schoolteacher.

Eventually, reality caught up with them.

They returned to Los Angeles.

Morrison dropped Stewart off — and she never saw him again.

Less than two years later, Morrison died in Paris at only 27.

Stewart has recalled learning about his death while she was at a recording studio. Rather than tell everyone about their private connection, she walked away, sat on a staircase and cried.

Just a few years later, Stewart walked into an audition that would completely change the way America saw her.

She became Miss Beadle on Little House on the Prairie.

For generations of viewers, she would forever be remembered standing inside that little Walnut Grove schoolhouse.

Few watching at home could have imagined that before the prairie dresses and school bell, Charlotte Stewart had shared one unforgettable chapter of her life with Jim Morrison.