Deserting the old rumor that Ginger slept here

[gilligan fanatic]

Ginger doesn’t live here anymore. There’s no sign she ever did.
Apparently the story has floated through the west end of the county for years, although I first heard it last fall: that one of the female stars of the old TV show “Gilligan’s Island” lives in the area, or did at one time.
People I met in Burlington and Waterford swore their friend’s cousin’s co-worker’s neighbor knew her. At first I heard it was Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann in the show. That kicked my interest level up a notch.
Looking back, guys can interpret volumes about their taste in women by which cast member they preferred. As a kid, faithfully squeezing in the show between homework and football, I was too young to appreciate the sultry movie star Ginger.

Mary Ann’s next-doorish charm was more my speed. I wasn’t celebrity-crazy enough to call it a crush, but she probably helped yank me out of the “girls equal yuck” phase of boyhood.

On slow news days I've been checking the grapevine, trying to find someone who could confirm that she’d lived here. The search narrowed to an area between East Troy and Burlington, and the mother of an old classmate of mine pinpointed the street where the TV star was rumored to live.

Except it was Ginger, she corrected me, not Mary Ann.

Oh, well, a star is a star. Hollywood people in Hollywood circles make me yawn. Hollywood people in rural Dairyland circles make me curious.
I’m told the late Barbara McNair, a Racinian, was an amazing singer and actress. Unfortunately, since her peak came before my time, the name means no more to me than Max Hardcore. Wikipedia lists him as a porn star under “Notable people from Racine”.

Gilligan and his castaway buddies hooked my generation when they extended their three-hour tour into decades of syndicated reruns. Gen-Xers knew Ginger, too.

Just don’t call her that. Tina Louise, who starred in a long list of other movies and TV series, has reportedly never been too psyched about that “Gilligan’s Island” role.

On Wednesday I bummed around the target area to end the search, one way or another. Some of the longtime residents have heard the chatter. Could’ve been an imposter, they theorized, but none of them knew Louise.
Until recently, Andrew Cider ran the Valley View Country Inn bed and breakfast with his wife, Emma. All they heard were snippets during real estate negotiations in the late 1990s that someone in the actress’s family might’ve lived in the house.

None of the real estate records back through the mid-1980s lists the actress’s name, though. Andrew Cider is convinced it’s all talk. If a celebrity had walked the halls, it would clearly be a selling point now that it’s on the market again.

“We’ve never represented it as belonging to anybody famous,” Cider said.
Until I hear differently, I’m filing this one under mythology — rural Burlington’s own Loch Ness Monster. Tina Louise’s management company didn’t respond to my interview request.

She’s probably had her own fill of rumors. Same as a desert island, it can take years to escape them.

Mike Moore can be reached at (262) 631-1724 or mike.moore@lee.net

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