Melissa Gilbert: Like 'fire and fire' working with Maks on 'DWTS'

Melissa Gilbert: Like ‘fire and fire’ working with Maks on ‘DWTS’

By Christie D’Zurilla

May 9, 2012 12 AM PT

Melissa Gilbert may have been eliminated from “Dancing With the Stars” on Tuesday night, but she went out on a hot note – apparently mirroring her working relationship with dance pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy.

“We talked about how some people are opposites, they’re like oil and water … ,” she told “Access Hollywood” after the show, but “we were just fire and fire all the time.”

“With us, you had no idea what was happening,” Chmerkovskiy told “Access,” saying he’d enjoyed their roller coaster of a season. “You had no idea if we were going to go through [to] next week, starting with Week 2, and that made it for an incredible, exciting, exciting 15 weeks.”

Ms. Half-Pint-Turned-Hot Stuff memorably closed her up-and-down “DWTS” run with her hands slapped on the buff brotherly buttocks of Maks and his brother Val, who’d been brought in as a second pro for a trio performance of the samba.

It was a performance judge Carrie Ann Inaba described giddily Monday as a “Chmerkovskiy sandwich” featuring Gilbert as some “very good little cream filling there in the middle, Missy.”

Alas, though the judges had lauded her samba and the preceding foxtrot as her best performances so far, Gilbert landed in the eliminated bottom two, along with Disney star Roshon Fegan, who the night before had posted his best scores ever doing the foxtrot and a trio pasodoble.

And it all happened on her 48^th birthday, no less – though that coincidence didn’t seem to rattle the “Little House on the Prairie” star, who’d weathered a mild “DWTS”-related concussion in April with only a day of rest.

“I’m amazed that I even made it this far,” Gilbert said on the show after being eliminated, “and the things that I was able to do and the things that were able to overcome to have been here on this day, does make it a really incredible birthday.”

In case you missed it, or simply want another serving, enjoy the Chmerkovskiy sandwich in action, below.

Melissa Gilbert files for divorce from Bruce Boxleitner

Brandy vs. Bristol Palin: How does elimination work on ‘Dancing With the Stars’?

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip @LATcelebs.