Tina Louise Almost Quit ‘Gilligan’s Island’ When They Wanted to Change Ginger

Tina Louise was starring on Broadway with Carol Burnett when producers approached her about a part in a new sitcom. “The CBS casting director Ethel Winant called me at the theater, ‘Do you think you could play this Lucille Ball/Marilyn Monroe-type of character?’” the 91-year-old actress told Forbes. “I said yes.”

The Lucy-meets-Marilyn character was Ginger Grant, the “movie star” who was shouted out in the opening credits of Gilligan’s Island. That character description was enough to make Louise ditch Broadway, but she was in for a rude awakening when she arrived on set. “I got there and the director wanted it to be a more sarcastic kind of character,” she said. “And so, then I didn’t even want to work on it anymore. I told him I wanted to quit.”

The head of CBS intervened, calling Louise in for a meeting. “I explained to him that I didn’t want to play it and I didn’t think the show would be successful, changing the original idea of the character,” she explained. “You just can’t go into people’s homes and dress somebody up like a doll and then have her to be not nice.”

The network executive agreed and fired the director, replacing him with Richard Donner, who went on to make Superman, Lethal Weapon and The Goonies. Donner “was fantastic,” Louise said. “He had a great sense of humor and then the writers started writing for what I was supposed to be doing and the show became a hit, and I enjoyed the part.”

The irony in Louise’s recent revelation? While she fought for Ginger to be nicer, she earned the opposite reputation on Gilligan’s Island. During the show's first season, when those opening credits lumped the Professor and Mary Ann into an anonymous “and the rest”? That was because Louise had a contract that stipulated top billing. 

According to TV Guide, Bob “Gilligan” Denver wanted nothing to do with her, and he wasn’t alone. During production, the rest of the cast “just ignore her, and she ignores them,” according to the report. “Between scenes, while the other six principals chat and tell jokes together, she sits off by herself.”

“She was never part of the company,” Dawn “Mary Ann” Wells said years later. “Even since then, I have tried to contact her. And she doesn’t even want to admit she was in (Gilligan’s Island).”

Working with her was a headache. In Russell “The Professor” Johnson’s memoir, as reported by MeTV, producer Sherwood Schwartz remembered the time that “Tina refused to do a scene, for what reason I don’t know. I had to step in to keep things going. So I went to her dressing room, where she had secluded herself, and I asked her what the problem was.”

Louise complained that the scene was ridiculous and she refused to perform. Schwartz begged to differ — get out there and do the scene. “Without a beat, she said to me, ‘Would you have my dressing room painted grey?’” Schwartz never figured out what the heck that meant, but Louise eventually did the scene. 

So have some sympathy for the original Gilligan’s Island director. While Donner probably delivered better comedy, the first guy seemed to have a handle on not-that-nice Louise all along.