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Ginger Grant is one of the main characters on the CBS-TV series "Gilligan's Island." She was played by actress Tina Louise and by Judith Baldwin in the first two NBC-TV made for TV films, Rescue from Gilligan's Island and The Castaways on Gilligan's Island, followed by Constance Forslund in the third TV movie, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. She was voiced by Jane Webb in The New Adventures of Gilligan and by Dawn Wells in Gilligan's Planet.
Personality[]
Ginger is the classic Hollywood type movie star actress, she is constantly reciting lines from her old movies and in plays always lands the lead role, and is Mary Ann's best friend. Ginger is sometimes often very calm, but can be spooked easily by bats, and things like that.
Any man worth his weight in hormones would give his right arm to be stuck on an island with Ginger Grant. Ginger is an alluring and sexy actress, reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe, who persists in worrying about her gowns, her appearance, her career, and Hollywood gossip. Ginger follows a fascinating moral code. While Ginger's extraordinarily flirtatious and shapely, she never tried to advance her acting career on the casting couch. She's always willing to use her seductive powers or acting ability to help her fellow castaways. She diverts any visitor to the island, and she eagerly suggests plans of action based on parts she's played in movies. Ginger lives in Hollywood, California, and has an agent whose name we never learn.
Ginger once sang in a club in Waikiki, Hawaii, and played a nurse in one episode of Ben Casey. She had minor roles in a remarkable number of Hollywood pictures, adding that she has done a few prison and haunted house pictures. At the time of the shipwreck, Ginger was scheduled to play the lead role of Cleopatra in the Broadway production of Pyramid for Two - a part she's convinced would have rocketed her to stardom. Since she only brought one gown with her, she sews other gowns together from Mrs. Howell's remnants and fabric that washes ashore. She even made one dress from Gilligan's duffel bag. She can't swim, and she can barely cook on her own without Mary Ann's help, once trying to serve fish pie to her fellow castaways with the bones intact. She's always assisting the Professor (the only man on the island she truly desires), later confessing he only appreciates her for her mind. She is often entertaining the other castaways with her singing and acting to keep morale up on the island, or nursing the other castaways back to health with the Professor. Her one regret in life is that she didn't pursue a career in nursing. Ginger shares a hut with Mary Ann. They are best friends, and they fish, take mud baths, sew, cook and do the laundry together.
Episode(s)[]
Outfits[]
Ginger has various outfits throughout the seasons, many of them include long dresses while some have long sleeves and others have short sleeves and they vary between different colors. She also turns Gilligan's old duffel bag into a dress.
Possessions[]
Unlike Gilligan and the Howells, Ginger doesn't bring a lot of things with her to the island, mostly perfume, make up, jewelry, some hankerchefs and several scripts. She also has a purse, a make-up kit, a horoscope magazine and a picture of her favorite actress... herself. She sometimes carries a handkerchief with her, sometimes using it to wipe her eyes when crying or as a prop when she demonstrating her acting. She has also been using it at times in medical situations, even once using one to help The Professor after he injures his nose. (Gilligan Goes Gung-Ho)
Trivia[]
- It's been claimed that Ginger's name was taken from two stars of Hollywood's "Golden Era", Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant.
- In Meet the Meteor, it's implied that her birthday is somewhere in December and around Christmas.
- Before she became a actress, she was an assistant to Merlin the Mind Reader and then a fortune teller to a fake sheik named Ali Ben Casey who showed her how to do fake séances and the art of crystal balls. She also alludes to working with a magician in It's Magic.
- In The Friendly Physician, Ginger confesses she starred in a lot of haunted house and prison pictures.
- She dated a lot in Hollywood. Her boyfriends included actors, swingers, a basketball player, a medical student and a safe cracker.
- She won a loving cup in a contest and can speak a little Spanish. In New Neighbor Sam, it's revealed she's had training in first aid.
- In Voodoo, Ginger reveals she entertained a lot of GIs at Army Camps.
- Ginger sings "It Had To Be You" in Forward March and "I Want To Be Loved By You" in The Second Ginger Grant, "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey?" (with Mary Ann) in Gilligan the Goddess, as well as the "Barcarolle (Ophelia's Song)" from the Hamlet musical production in The Producer. As a member of The Honeybees with Mary Ann and Mrs. Howell, she sings, "You Need Us."
- It is unknown how Ginger got all of her dresses on the island. In Two on a Raft, she mentions how she only has one dress. In Three Million Dollars, More or Less, she says she made one dress out of Gilligan's dufflebag, and yet, he is seen with it in many episodes afterwards. She also wears a dress made out of a SS Minnow blanket!
- She flirts with Gilligan a lot on the island, sometimes as a favor for Mr. Howell, but she resists when the Skipper comes on to her while amnesiac and when Spy Gilligan comes on to her thinking she's Gilligan's girlfriend. She also flirts with a lot of the male visitors on the island to help the others get rescued.
- In nearly all of her night-time appearances where she's awakened, Ginger always shows up with a blanket wrapped around her body.
- In Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow, Gilligan goes bald, he gives Ginger a blanket to cover herself because his bleach causes her dress to fall apart! (Although a continuity goof would have all the castaways clothing coming apart as Gilligan was doing everyone's laundry!)
- Whenever Mr. Howell wants something from Gilligan, he usually sends Ginger to persuade him.
- When she hears from Wrongway Feldman that her roommate Debby Dorson has become a famous Broadway actress, she nearly has a nervous breakdown. A similar thing occurs when Ginger hears that her rival, Joanie Joe Langford, has won a beauty contest and an "Around the World Cruise in Beauty Is as Beauty Does. She also becomes upset when Eva Grubb departs with a note saying she was going to impersonate Ginger in Hollywood. (Although, there is no word this actually occurs.)
- Although the comedy gives the impression that Dawn Wells was a teenager to Ginger Grant, an older woman, Wells was 26 and Louise was 30.
- When Dr. Boris Balinkoff turns Ginger into a human robot, he tries to kiss her and she slaps him silly!
- When Ginger tries to persuade the Robot XR-1000 to get her off the island, the emotionless robot says "Tilt" and steam comes out of its ears!
- Her repertoire of songs includes Let Me Entertain You, Alouette, I Wanna Be Loved By You, It Had To Be You, Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey? (with Mary Ann), as well as the Barcarolle (Ophelia's Song) from the Hamlet musical production. As a member of The Honeybees, she sings, You Need Us.
- Ginger has starred in several movies, but while she has named several of them, she has also mentioned movies and details from films she hasn't identified including one where "he loved her with a burning passion, and she loved him like a flaming fire" (The Matchmaker), one where she picked a lock with a bobby pin (Plant You Now, Dig You Later), one where a couple throw themselves into a volcano (Operation: Steam Heat), one where a couple on a big boat are married by the captain (Mr. and Mrs. ???) and one where she played a psychiatrist trying to reform a criminal who returns to a life of crime (The Kidnapper).
- Although she appears in other castaway's dream sequences, Ginger is the only castaway to never have a dream sequence herself (Gilligan has at least seven dream sequences, the Skipper dreams he's a rajah surrounded by a harem of women, the Professor dreams he's Cary Grant surrounded by female groupies, Mr. Howell dreams he is spoiled by women, Mrs. Howell dreams she is Cinderella and Mary Ann dreams she is mortally sick in a Soap Opera hospital.) However, one could claim that Ginger's life has been such a dream that she rarely dreams of anything else.
- Among the roles Ginger plays on the island is a psychiatrist, a nurse, dental assistant, barber, Cleopatra, Agent 37-26-38, Spy 36-25-36, a human robot, a fortune telling medium and a USO Show girl. In the dreams of her fellow castaways, she's been an old woman, a princess, a dancing girl, a harem girl, a ship's passenger, a saloon owner, the Woman in Red, Cinderella's stepsister, Spy 0036, Spy 5/Gilligan's fiance, a member of Gilligan's presidential cabinet and the vampire bride of Gilligan.