As Ginger Grant on “Gilligan’s Island,” Tina Louise had a rather remarkable wardrobe for someone who was shipwrecked while on a three-hour tour. Those marvelous beaded dresses that just matched her skin tone surely were not just lying around on the S.S. Minnow.
“You can’t imagine what I can jam into one bag, really,” Ms. Louise said in a telephone interview on Friday. “I’m a good packer.”
As for her character, she was asked, did it ever make her wonder why Ginger would have brought a wardrobe more befitting a voyage on the Titanic?
“I have a very large imagination,” she said. Besides, there were so many dream sequences on the show that more costumes were required.
Of course, it helped that the designer of her wardrobe was the great costume designer Nolan Miller,
who died on Wednesday at the age of 79. During his career, Mr. Miller worked on more than a dozen television series, including “Dynasty,” “The Love Boat” and “Charlie’s Angels.” Aaron Spelling, the producer, often said that to recruit big guest stars on his shows, instead of offering money, he promised that Mr. Miller would design their clothes.
On “Gilligan’s Island,” Ms. Louise said, she was asked to play a character that was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball. The first dress she wore by Mr. Miller, a beige dress with silver bugle beads along the neckline, was perfect, she said.
“It was crepe and very thin, very easy and very close to your skin,” she said. “They were very critical of not showing any cleavage at the time.”
Ms. Louise got to know Mr. Miller, and also became close to Mark Zunino and Rene Horsch, the designer’s protégés, whom he treated like sons. Mr. Zunino, for many years, designed a ready-to-wear collection for Mr. Miller in Los Angeles. Ms. Louise said she continued to wear Mr. Miller’s dresses well after Ginger had returned to the mainland.
“There were so many different events,” she said. “I usually go to the Academy parties in New York City, but there was one year when I went out to Los Angeles. Nolan took me out and, of course, I wore his dress. He picked me up in his Rolls-Royce. It was the year when ‘The Pianist’ won so many awards.”
“They put the dress on me and it fit perfectly,” she said. “It was one of those beaded creations that you couldn’t wear anything under, and, of course, you had better be in great shape.”
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