How Dawn Wells Felt About Her Gilligan’s Island Co-Star Tina Louise

Though the castaways of “Gilligan’s Island” had their fair share of misadventures while trapped on a desert island, the cast of the series seemed to mostly appreciate the bounties that came from starring in the show — save for one. Tina Louise, the actor who portrayed Ginger the movie star, seemingly wanted nothing to do with the series after it ended and didn’t come back for any of the spin-offs, leading many to assume she truly hated everything to do with “Gilligan’s Island.” Her co-star Dawn Wells, who played the chipper and earnest farm girl Mary Ann, was essentially the opposite. She not only returned for several “Gilligan’s Island” projects, but even reprised her role (alongside Gilligan himself, Bob Denver) on an episode of “Baywatch.”

As characters, Ginger and Mary Ann are polar opposites, and the actors behind them seem pretty dissimilar too. In a 2019 interview with Woman’s World, however, Wells shared her feelings about working with the ginger-haired movie star and offered some thoughts on how Louise might really have felt about the series. Turns out, there was less animosity than many fans assumed; Louise was merely ready to move on from “Gilligan’s Island” after it ended.

In the same interview, which was completed only a year or so before Wells’ death in 2020, she explained that Louise might have been misled about her role in the show. Where “Gilligan’s Island” was very much an ensemble series, Wells thought Louise went in expecting to be the lead. As she put it:

“I think that maybe her agent said to her, ‘You’re going to be the movie star on an island’ and I think that she, in her mind, thought, ‘Oh, I’m the movie star on the island. That doesn’t mean that I have other actors with me.’ That’s my perception, but she also considered herself a star. I don’t know what her salary was; maybe she wasn’t getting paid enough.”

It’s ironic that Wells thought her co-star was potentially upset about pay when Wells was paid significantly less than some of her co-stars (including Louise). Still, her point about Louise being sold the idea of being the star when she was really one of the show’s many players potentially holds some weight. Louise was one of the more established actors on the series (and allegedly feuded with Denver, the other big star), so it makes sense that she might have wanted some preferential treatment. Thankfully, as far as Wells was concerned, there was never any animosity between the two of them, and she enjoyed working with Louise. 

There were some other factors involved in Louise feeling unhappy about her role on “Gilligan’s Island” that Wells may not have known about, including the fact that Louise dropped out of a Carol Burnett project in order to be on the show. She also felt typecast, which her co-star Russell Johnson, who played the Professor, felt could make her a little mercurial and moody on set. Wells, on the other hand, didn’t have that experience. She stated that Louise was “not temperamental to work with” and that she taught the less-experienced actor quite a bit about things like camera angles.

While it seems everyone had a slightly different experience with Louise on “Gilligan’s Island,” the actor herself eventually came to terms with the role when she had a powerful encounter with a fan that helped her realize the impact the show had on people. In the end, she didn’t regret playing the movie star, even if she didn’t embrace the role as readily as her various co-stars.