Tina Louise Tina Louise is an American actress, singer,
and author.
She is best known for her role as the movie star Ginger Grant on the situation comedy,
Gilligan's Island . Early life
Tina Blacker was born in New York City to a Jewish family.
An only child, she was raised by her mother, Betty Horn Myers (1916–2011), a fashion
model.
Tina's father, Joseph Blacker, was a candy store owner in Brooklyn and later an accountant.
The name "Louise" was allegedly added during her senior year in high school when she mentioned
to her drama teacher that she was the only girl in the class without a middle name.
He selected the name "Louise" and it stuck.
She attended Miami University in Ohio.
Career Early work
At the age of 17, Louise began studying acting, singing and dancing.
She studied acting under Sanford Meisner at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse in
Manhattan.
During her early acting years, she was offered modeling jobs, including as a rising starlet,
who along with Jayne Mansfield, was a product advocate in the 1958 Frederick's of Hollywood
catalog, and appeared on the cover of several pinup magazines such as Adam, Sir! and Modern
Man.
Her later pictorials for Playboy (May 1958; April 1959) were arranged by Columbia Pictures
studio in an effort to further promote the young actress.
Her acting debut came in 1952 in the Bette Davis musical revue Two's Company, followed
by roles in other Broadway productions, such as John Murray Anderson's Almanac, The Fifth
Season, and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
She appeared in such early live television dramas as Studio One, Producers' Showcase,
and Appointment with Adventure.
In 1957, she appeared on Broadway in the hit musical Li'l Abner.
Her album, It's Time for Tina, was released that year, with songs such as "Embraceable
You" and "I'm in the Mood for Love".
Hollywood and Gilligan's Island Louise made her Hollywood film debut in 1958
in God's Little Acre.
That same year, the National Art Council named her the "World's Most Beautiful Redhead."
She became an in-demand leading lady for major stars like Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark
and Robert Ryan, often playing somber roles quite unlike the glamorous pinup photographs
and Playboy pictorials she had become famous for in the late 1950s.
She turned down roles in Li'l Abner and Operation Petticoat taking roles on Broadway and in
Italian cinema and Hollywood.
Among her more notable Italian film credits was the historical epic Garibaldi (1960),
directed by Roberto Rossellini, that concerned Garibaldi's efforts to unify the Italian states
in 1860.
When Louise returned to the United States, she began studying with Lee Strasberg and
eventually became a member of the Actors Studio.
She appeared in a 1962 episode of The Real McCoys, the Walter Brennan sitcom, and in
the 1964 beach party film For Those Who Think Young, with Bob Denver, prior to the development
of Gilligan's Island.
In 1964, she left the Broadway musical Fade Out – Fade In to portray movie star Ginger
Grant on the situation comedy Gilligan's Island, after the part was turned down by Jayne Mansfield.
However, she was unhappy with the role and worried that it would typecast her.
The role did make Louise a pop icon of the era, and in 2005 an episode of TV Land Top
Ten ranked her as second only to Heather Locklear as the greatest of television's all-time sex
symbols.
After the series ended in 1967, Louise continued to work in film and made numerous guest appearances
in various television series.
She appeared in the Matt Helm spy spoof The Wrecking Crew (1969) with Dean Martin.
Louise played a doomed suburban housewife in the original The Stepford Wives (1975),
and both the film and her performance were well received.
She attempted to shed her comedic image by assaying grittier roles, including a guest
appearance as a pathetic heroin addict in a 1974 Kojak episode, as well as a co-starring
role as an evil Southern prison guard in the 1976 ABC-TV Movie Nightmare in Badham County.
Her other television films of the period included Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976),
SST: Death Flight (1977), Friendships, Secrets and Lies (1979), and in the prime-time soap
opera Dallas, during the 1978–79 seasons, as J.R.
Ewing's secretary, Julie Grey, a semi-regular character.
Her character was finally killed off.
The question "Ginger or Mary Ann?" is regarded to be a classic pop-psychological question
when given to American men of a certain age as an insight into their characters, or at
least their desires as regarding certain female stereotypes.
With the January 2014 death of Gilligan's Island co-star Russell Johnson, Louise and
actress Dawn Wells are the only two surviving cast members of the original sitcom.
Louise is quoted as saying, "The best movie you'll ever be in is your own life because
that's what matters in the end."
Later work Louise declined to participate in any of three
reunion television films for Gilligan's Island.
She kept claiming that the show ruined her career.
The role of Ginger was recast with Judith Baldwin and Constance Forslund.
Although she did not appear in these television movies, she made brief walk-on appearances
on a few talk shows and specials for Gilligan's Island reunions, including Good Morning America
(1982), The Late Show (1988) and the 2004 TV Land award show with the other surviving
cast members.
In the 1990s, she was reunited with costars Bob Denver, Dawn Wells, and Russell Johnson
in an episode of Roseanne.
She did not reunite with them for the television film Surviving Gilligan's Island (2001), co-produced
by Wells.
She was portrayed by Kristen Dalton in the television film.
Her relations with series star Denver were rumored to be strained, but in 2005, she wrote
a brief, affectionate memorial to him in the year-end "farewell" issue of Entertainment
Weekly.
In 1985, Louise played the second and final Taylor Chapin on the syndicated serial Rituals.
Later film roles included a co-starring appearance in the Robert Altman comedy O.C. and Stiggs
(1987) as well as the independently made satire Johnny Suede (1992) starring Brad Pitt.
She appeared in Married... with Children as Miss Beck in episode "Kelly Bounces Back"
(1990).
As of 2014, Louise has returned to the acting world in the upcoming spiritual drama, Tapestry
and the horror film Late Phases.
Music Louise made one record album, It's Time for
Tina, which was released originally on Concert Hall in 1957 (Concert Hall 1521), and later
reissued on Urania Records (1958 and 1959 respectively).
The album is sought after by collectors.
With arrangements by Jim Timmens and Buddy Weed's Orchestra, 12 tracks include "Tonight
Is the Night" and "I'm in the Mood for Love."
Coleman Hawkins is featured on tenor sax.
The album has been reissued on CD twice, most recently on the UK label Harkit Records.
The album was released on iTunes in 2012.
Personal life From 1966 to 1974, Louise was married to radio
and TV announcer/interviewer Les Crane, with whom she has one daughter, Caprice Crane (born
1970), who became an MTV producer and a novelist.
Crane's first novel, Stupid and Contagious, was published in 2006, and was warmly dedicated
to her mother.
Louise now resides in New York City.
She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a lifetime member of
the Actors Studio.
As a literacy and academic advocate, she became a volunteer teacher at Learning Leaders, a
non-profit organization dedicated to providing tutoring to New York City school children.
It has been her passion to help young students gain not only literary skills, but also confidence,
self-determination and proof of their own potential.
She has written two books: Sunday: A Memoir (1997) and When I Grow Up (2007).
The latter is a children's book that inspires children to believe they can become whatever
they choose through creative and humorous comparisons of animal kingdom achievements.
She published a second children's book titled What Does a Bee Do?
Filmography Television
Stage work Two's Company (1952)
The Fifth Season (1953) John Murray Anderson's Almanac (1953)
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
(1955) Li'l Abner (1956)
Fade Out – Fade In (1964) References in popular culture
Tina Louise is one of two celebrities included among the many women's names listed in The
B-52's 1979 song, "52 Girls" (the other is Jacqueline Onassis)
A song on The Dirtbombs' album If You Don't Already Have a Look is named "Tina Louise"
(#26 on Disc one) On the TV series Bob's Burgers, the family's
two daughters are named, oldest to youngest, Tina and Louise.
An Asian Fusion restaurant in Carlstadt, New Jersey is named "Tina Louise"