Ginger Grant

Ginger Grant is a fictional character portrayed by actress Tina Louise in the 1964 to 1967 television sitcom Gilligan's Island.

Character summary

Grant is a "movie star", and would casually mention names of some of the biggest movie stars of the day, as co-stars or acquaintances, suggesting that she too was a great star. She also mentions her roommate and fellow actress, Debbie Dawson, several times. In the series' Season 1 Episode 1 "Two on a Raft", Ginger is also "singing in a club in Waikiki", possibly the same gig mentioned by the radio announcer where she was "still wearing the evening gown from her last performance". "When I first broke into show business, I used to work with a magician", Ginger confesses in Season 1 Episode 33 "It's Magic". In Gilligan's Island's pilot, actress Kit Smythe, was hired to portray Ginger; who was then a secretary.

Ginger was sometimes seen helping the Professor with his experiments, dressed in a lab coat and spectacle frames, and they conspired together in the episode 'Ship Ahoax' to make it appear as though she were fortune-telling. They also shared romantic scenes, although these were usually in the form of a "lesson in love", such as in the episodes 'Erica Tiffany-Smith to the Rescue' and 'The Postman Cometh'. It is possible the creator of the show intended to develop a relationship between the pair, but this never eventuated on screen.