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Fans of “Gilligans Island” are probably closely familiar with The original pilot of the showwhich was shot in 1963, but was only broadcast to the public in 1992. The pilot called “maroon”. The professor was originally a high school teacher played by John Gabriel. The Mary Ann figure was a secretary named Bunny (Nancy McCarthy), and Ginger was still appointed in Ginger, but … another secretary. She was played by Kit Smythe.
Finally the show was revised and the creator Sherwood Schwartz wrote a closer, better pilot With the professor (Russell Johnson)Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and Ginger (Tina Louise), whom we all know and love today.
In Schwartz’s biography “In Gilligan’s island: from creation to syndicate,” He mentioned that Louise was a little difficult to get along with outside the camera because she had assumed that she was hired as the star of the show and no member of a seven-person ensemble. Louise also rejected Schwartz’s version of “The Movie Star” Ginger Grant because she campaigned as a more insidious seducher. Louise insisted that ginger was made more of a glamor dog that was modeled on Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield. It was the right choice. Ginger is a better character if it is obsessed with help and famous.
The way it happened was modeling ginger after Jayne Mansfield was at a time. In 1963 Mansfield had a long -standing production of the play “Bus stop” and experienced a wild change in her personal life when she was offered the role of ginger on “Gilligan’s Island”. Mansfield declined the (perhaps bad) advice of her new husband and rejected the role. This was all in detail on The website returns the 50s.
Jayne Mansfield was told by her husband that she should not take on the role of ginger
Mansfield became famous on stage in the early 1950s and on television for her bubbling sense of humor and her dazzling good looks. The actress was best known to play “stupid blonde” characters and came to invent a certain type of cinematic archetype. Mansfield was also known for being a model and entered the public perspective in an edition of Playboy from 1955 and brought both she and the magazine. It is often described as a sex symbol.
In January 1964, Mansfield performed in a long -standing production of the “bus stop” with her husband Mickey Hargitay at the time. The couple had just greeted A little daughter, MariskaBut her marriage was famous on the rock. Mansfield had fallen in love with Matt Cimber in her co-star “Bus stops”, and she was hastily ruled in August to marry Comber almost immediately afterwards. It was a hurricane of a time for Mansfield, whose career experienced a high.
However, Mansfield was concerned about her public image. She had played sex bombs and “stupid blondes” so often that she felt in my bar and wanted to branch out as an actress. When CBS turned to her to play ginger on “Gilligan’s Island”, she hesitated. In her eyes, ginger was too similar to the seducer she had spent in the past decade. The story states that Cimber, who heard her requests for a variety of career, advised her to reject the role. She did it.
Instead, Tina Louise got the part and the rest is history.
Of course, it is easy to imagine a parallel world in which Mansfield took over the job and was in Los Angeles in 1967, while “Gilligan’s Island” was in the third season. In this way she should not have been on this street in Louisiana in 1967 to experience her fatal car accident. However, Mansfield and Louise have long legacies and firm places in the Firmament of Pop Culture. They are both immortal.
