Larue Wilson

Larue

Lynette Winter as Larue in Gidget
First appearance Gidget, The Little Girl With Big Ideas
Last appearance The New Gidget
Created by Frederick Kohner
Portrayed by Lynette Winter
Anne Lockhart
Jill Jacobson
Information
Gender Female
Occupation Student. Later, travel agent

Larue Wilson is a fictional character introduced in Frederick Kohner's 1957 novel Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas. She also appears in much of the television work involving Gidget.

The Novel

This is the first mention of Larue; she is described by Gidget in Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas:

I called Larue who is my girlfriend across the street. Larue is one year older than I and in the possession of a genuine driver's licence as well as a jazzed up Ford vintage 1930. No kidding. She had inherited it from her mother who had driven it for sixteen years. It's a convertible with a new motor in it and beats a Cadillac any day. Some guy had offered her five hundred bucks for it but she had just looked down her nose at him—and she's got quite a long nose. Everything on Larue is long: her nose, her feet, her arms, her teeth, her fingernails, and when she had the mumps, it was the longest mumps on record. I often feel sorry for her. Her love life is defunct—unless you believe my brother in law who figures Larue is sublimating with horses. She works at this crummy stable all the time and rides the horses of people who board them there. It doesn't cost her a nickel.[1]

She is a fairly minor character in this novel, and she does not appear in any of the subsequent Gidget novels by Kohner, nor in any of the three Gidget motion pictures produced by Columbia Pictures. She reemerges as a principal character in the 1965-1966 sitcom version of Gidget.

Television

In the television sitcom Gidget Larue is played by Lynette Winter.[2] Her last name is not given in the novel, and only once in episode #11 she is referred to by Anne as Larue Shelby (the scene where Anne peels a potato to nearly nothing). The best friend of Frances "Gidget" Lawrence (Sally Field), she more often than not gets caught up in Gidget's schemes and other misadventures. In some ways, Larue is presented as a foil to Gidget personality-wise. She often joins her on her trips to the beach, but is fair-skinned and thus hardly seen there without being covered up and wearing a floppy hat to protect her from the sun. Some of Gidget's friends see Larue as uncool (e.g. Dolly in episode #11 "My Ever Faithful Friend," who makes snide comments about her), but she generally is depicted as fitting in. And of course, she and Gidget are usually inseparable.

Anne Lockhart as Larue Powell in Gidget's Summer Reunion

In the ABC telemovies Gidget Grows Up and Gidget Gets Married Larue does not appear,[3][4] but she does appear as "Larue Powell" in the 1985 ABC telemovie Gidget's Summer Reunion, played by Anne Lockhart.[5]

In The New Gidget (1986), Larue is played by Jill Jacobson, and is renamed "Larue Wilson".[6]

Other facts about Larue based on information given in the show:[7]

Jill Jacobson as Larue Wilson in The New Gidget

References

  1. ↑ Gidget by Fredrick Kohner (2001) Berkley Publishing Group (first printing 1957).
  2. ↑ IMDb credits for Gidget (TV series)
  3. ↑ IMDb credits for Gidget Grows Up
  4. ↑ IMDb credits for Gidget Gets Married
  5. ↑ IMDb credits for Gidget's Summer Reunion
  6. ↑ IMDb credits for The New Gidget
  7. ↑ Gidget: The Complete Series (2006). [DVD set]. New York: Sony Pictures.

External links