Tina Louise

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Tina Louise as "Ginger Grant" on Gilligan's Island.
Tina Louise as "Ginger Grant" on Gilligan's Island.

Tina Louise (born February 11, 1934) is an American model, singer, and film and television actress, best known for her portrayal of Ginger Grant on television's Gilligan's Island.

She was born Tina Blacker, an only child, to a Jewish family in New York City, and attended Miami University. She started her career as a model and nightclub singer while she studied at the Actors Studio.

In 1957, she and Julie Newmar made their Broadway debuts in Li'l Abner. Her album It's Time for Tina was also released that year, with songs such as "Embraceable You" and "I'm in the Mood for Love".

She made her Hollywood film debut in 1958 in God's Little Acre. She became an in-demand leading lady for major stars like Robert Taylor and Robert Ryan often playing somber roles quite unlike the glamorous pinup photographs she had become famous for in the late 1950's. Further roles followed, on Broadway and in films in Italy and Hollywood, but they failed to accelerate her career.

In 1964 she left the Broadway musical Fade Out - Fade In to portray "movie star" Ginger Grant on the television series Gilligan's Island. Louise finally achieved a level of fame and recognition; however, she was unhappy with the role and worried that it would typecast her. The role did make her a pop icon of the era and in 2005 an episode of TV Land Top Ten ranked her #2 as television's all-time sex symbol, second only to Heather Locklear. She also appeared in SST: Death Flight.

After the series ended in 1967, she continued to work in films and made numerous guest appearances in various television series. She appeared as a doomed suburban housewife in the original The Stepford Wives (1975), and both the film and her performance were well received.

Despite this success, she has declined to participate in any of the four reunion television movies for Gilligan's Island, but did appear on a few talk shows & specials for some Gilligan's Island Reunions including Good Morning America (1982), The Late Show (1988) and the 2004 TV Land award show with the other surviving cast members. In the 1990s she was reunited with costars Bob Denver, Dawn Wells, and Russell Johnson in cameo appearances on an episode of Roseanne. Her relations with series star Denver were rumored to be strained but in 2005 she wrote a brief, affectionate memorial to him in the year-end farewell issue of Entertainment Weekly.

Louise appeared as a semi-regular character in the prime-time soap opera Dallas and made an appearance on Married... with Children. In 1985, Tina played the second and final Taylor Chapin on the syndicated soap opera Rituals.

Contents

[edit] Trivia

  • Louise appeared in an early 1960s "beach movie", For Those Who Think Young with Bob Denver prior to the development of Gilligan's Island.
  • She was married to announcer/interviewer Les Crane, and has one daughter, Caprice Crane, who became an MTV producer and a novelist; her first novel, Stupid and Contagious, was published in 2006, and warmly dedicated to her mother.
  • A song on The Dirtbombs' album If You Don't Already Have a Look is named "Tina Louise".
  • An Asian Fusion restaurant in Carlstadt, New Jersey is named Tina Louise.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Television Work

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Gilligan's Island
List of episodes
Cast Bob Denver (Gilligan), Alan Hale Jr. (Skipper), Russell Johnson (Professor), Tina Louise (Ginger Grant)
Dawn Wells (Mary Ann), Jim Backus (Thurston Howell III), Natalie Schafer (Lovey Howell)
Spin-offs Rescue From Gilligan's Island, Gilligan's Planet, The Real Gilligan's Island, Gilligan's Wake, The Castaways on Gilligan's Island
Other S. S. Minnow, The Adventures of Gilligan's Island (video game)
Crew Sherwood Schwartz, Jack Arnold, William Froug, Gerald Fried, Richard Donner
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