Ginger Grant

Ginger Grant
Gilligan's Island character
Created by	Sherwood Schwartz
Portrayed by	1963 – Kit Smythe 1964-1967 – Tina Louise 1978-1979 – Judith Baldwin 1981 – Constance Forslund
Information
Nickname(s)	The Movie-Star
Gender	Female
Occupation	Actress
Title	Motion-picture star

Ginger Grant is a fictional character in the 1964 to 1967 television sitcom Gilligan's Island.

Character summary

Grant is a "movie star", and would casually mention names of some of the biggest movie stars of the day, as co-stars or acquaintances, suggesting that she too was a great star. In the series' Season 1 Episode 1 "Two on a Raft", Ginger is also "singing in a club in Waikiki", possibly the same gig mentioned by the radio announcer where she was "still wearing the evening gown from her last performance". "When I first broke into show business, I used to work with a magician", Ginger confesses in Season 1 Episode 33 "It's Magic". In Gilligan's Island's pilot, actress Kit Smythe, was hired to portray Ginger; who was then a secretary.

In the live action TV series, Ginger appears in several episodes to be the desire of The Skipper (Alan Hale, Jr.) but as this was 1960s series television, the "relationship" was never allowed to develop beyond a mild flirtation. The Skipper chooses Ginger as his preferred contestant in the "Miss Castaway Pageant" held on the island (Season 2 Episode 2 "Beauty Is As Beauty Does"). In addition, when Skipper loses his memory in the first season Episode 30 "Forget Me Not", he is much more attracted to "Well, hi, beautiful" Ginger than "Howdy, Ma'am" Mary Ann.

Ginger sides with Thurston Howell, III, on many occasions, acting as a witness during a trial over treasure, serving as a sort of spy to divulge information from Gilligan by scratching his back and allowing herself to be bribed by Howell, such as during the "election" of who was to be President of the island. It should also be noted that her secret agent code name and her measurements were both 36-25-36.

Ginger Grant, due to many prior film roles in Hollywood, spent her time on the island occasionally taking on the roles of chanteuse, barefoot fortune-teller, lab assistant, and psychoanalyst – as well as fronting the hastily-formed island musical trio: The Honeybees. She also had to deal with a doppelganger, a plain mousy girl named Eva Grubb (also played by Tina Louise).

The character in Gilligan's Island reunion films

In the 1978 made-for-TV-movie, Rescue from Gilligan's Island; Tina Louise refused to return, for she believed the role had typecast her as a forever glamor queen, and was replaced by Judith Baldwin. Baldwin also portrayed Ginger in the sequel The Castaways on Gilligan's Island. However, Baldwin didn't return for the third sequel, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island; therefore, Constance Forslund, stepped in as the fourth actress to play the "movie star".

Actresses who played the role of Ginger Grant

Jayne Mansfield, a late-1950s sex symbol, was offered the role of Ginger after the departure of Kit Smythe, who played Ginger as a secretary in the pilot. When Ginger was converted to a movie star, the producers swapped the actresses, and asked Mansfield, who was a Marilyn Monroe-esque, to portray the character. However, she turned it down and was replaced by Tina Louise. Louise, however, disliked the character and for years felt it had ruined her career as being a "serious" actress. Judith Baldwin, played her in the first and second reunion film. Constance Forslund, played her in the third and final reunion film to date.

Fictional film roles mentioned by the Ginger character

• Belly Dancers from Bali-Bali
• The Bird People Meet the Chicken-Pluckers
• The Hula Girl and the Fullback
• In Our Darkest Hour When All Seems Lost, Somewhere in the Fearsome Black of Night, Let Us Search for That Shining Star Which Will Guide Us Out of Our Desolation
• Mohawk Over the Moon
• The Rain Dancers of Rango-Rango
• San Quentin Blues
• Sing a Song of Sing-Sing
• Housewives from Mars
• Dracula's Women

Film role notes:

• Ginger also had a part in a movie of an unknown name in a role as a nurse in an operating room. The film "had a happy ending; the patient had twins" – Ginger (Season 1, Episode 35 "A Nose By Any Other Name").
• In Season 1's Episode 3 "Voodoo Something to Me", Mary Ann asks Ginger "weren't you in The Land of the Vampires?", and Ginger replied she was "up for a part", but wasn't actually in that movie because she was "the wrong blood type".
• In "The Little Dictator" (Season 2, Episode 3), "El Presidente" of "La Rebublica de Equarico", namely "Pancho Hernando Gonzalez Enriques Rodriguez" (played by Nehemiah Persoff), the unstable dictator is persuaded by her to help fire off yet another bullet left in his gun in some debaucous target practice (this bullet is the third of six remaining in Rodriguez' revolver by his exilers). Rodriguez says later, after trying to dispatch Gilligan for trying to net him, that he forgot he already "used the last two in his last cabinet meeting". (This means that the "third" round was actually the last one, thus Ginger effectively saved Gilligan's life at his obstensive execution!) This sequence gives rise to yet another reference to Ginger's film career as she says she "would've had the lead in Standing Cow, Daughter of Sitting Bull", if she "could've learned to shoot like him."

References

• Denver, Bob (November 1993). Gilligan, Maynard & Me. Carol Publishing Corporation. ISBN 0-8065-1413-2. 
• Green, Joey (April 1988). Unofficial Gilligan's Island Handbook. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-38668-5. 
• Johnson, Russell; Steve Cox (July 1993). Here on Gilligan's Isle (1st ed.). Perennial. ISBN 0-06-096993-8. 
• Schwartz, Sherwood (April 15, 1994). Inside Gilligan's Island: A Three-Hour Tour Through The Making of a Television Classic. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-10482-0. 
• Stoddard, Sylvia (May 1996). TV Treasures – A Companion Guide to Gilligan's Island. New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks. ISBN 0-312-95797-1. 
• Gilligan's Island – The Complete First Season (DVD), 2004, Turner Home Entertainment, UPC 053939673425.
• Gilligan's Island – The Complete Second Season (DVD), 2005, Turner Home Entertainment, UPC 053939692624.
• Gilligan's Island – The Complete Third Season (DVD), 2005, Turner Home Entertainment, UPC 053939733129.

External links

• Gilligan's Island at the Internet Movie Database
• Gilligan's Island at TV.com
• Gilligan's Island: Underneath the Grass Skirt (1999 documentary) at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Gilligan's Island Fan Club
• Gilligan's Island movie in the works