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Fans of “Gilligan’s Island” probably know intimately The original pilot of the programwhich was shot in 1963, but not broadcast to the public before 1992. The pilot, called “Marooned”, presented Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer (like Gilligan, Le Skipper, Mr. Howell and Mrs. Professor was originally a high school teacher played by John Gabriel. by Kit Smythe.
Finally, the show was reworked, and creator Sherwood Schwartz wrote a tighter and better driver With the professor (Russell Johnson)Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and Ginger (Tina Louise) that we know and all love today.
In Schwartz’s biography “Inside the island of Gilligan: from creation to syndication,” He mentioned that Louise was a little difficult to get along with the camera because she supposed that she was hired to be the star of the show, and not a member of a set of seven people. Louise also opposed the version of Schwartz of “The Movie Star” Ginger Grant because it was planned to be a more insidious seductive. Louise insisted that Ginger was more transformed into a glamorous dog, shaped after Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield. It was the right choice. Ginger is a better character when it is useful and obsessed with renown.
He therefore performed, Ginger’s modeling after Jayne Mansfield was about. In 1963, Mansfield played in a long -term production of the play “Bus Stop” and lived a wild change in her personal life when she was offered the role of Ginger on “Gilligan’s Island”. By taking the (perhaps the bad) advice from her new husband, Mansfield refused the role. Everything was detailed on The website rewinds the 1950s.
Jayne Mansfield was informed by her husband not to accept the role of Ginger
Mansfield came to glory in the early 1950s on the stage and television for its sparkling sense of humor and its dazzling beauty. The actress was best known for playing “blonde dumb” characters and came to help invent a certain type of cinematographic archetype. Mansfield was also known to be a model and appeared naked in a Playboy issue in 1955, bringing her and the magazine in the public view. It is often described as a sexual symbol.
In January 1964, Mansfield appeared in a long -standing production of “Bus Stop” with her husband of the time, Mickey Hargitay. The pair had just welcomed A little girl, MariskaBut their marriage was famous on the rocks. Mansfield fell in love with her co-star of “Bus Stop” Matt Cimber, and she has hastily divorced Hargitay in August, to marry almost immediately after. It was a whirlwind of a time for Mansfield, whose career lived a summit.
Mansfield, however, was concerned about his public image. She had played sex bombs and “stupid blondes” so often that she felt the pigeon and wanted to branch as an actress. When CBS contacted her to play ginger on “Gilligan’s Island”, she was reluctant. Ginger, in the eyes, was too similar to the seduce that she had spent the last decade to play. The story tells that Cimber, listening to his pleas for career diversity, advised him to refuse the role. She did it.
Tina Louise obtained the room instead, and the rest belongs to history.
Of course, it is easy to imagine a parallel world where Mansfield took the job, and was in Los Angeles in 1967 while “Gilligan’s Island” was in his third season. In this way, she should not have been on this road in Louisiana in 1967 to live her mortal car accident. Mansfield and Louise, however, have long inheritances and firm places in the firmament of pop culture. They are both immortal.
