Gilligan's Island Nearly Replaced A Castaway With Elvira Actress Cassandra Peterson

Kansas native Cassandra Peterson, best known for her role as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, nearly replaced Tina Louise as the character Ginger Grant in the Gilligan's Island TV movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. The third Gilligan's Island TV movie was released in 1981 and aired on CBS. Peterson was set to play the role of Ginger Grant, a movie star on the island.

However, CBS unexpectedly canceled the TV show after three seasons, leaving Peterson without a role in the film. Ginger Grant had been Peterson's favorite character as a child, so her loss was devastating. She was informed by Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz that a network executive had seen her perform with the improv troupe The Groundlings and disliked her portrayal of a patient in a gynecologist's office sketch.

Peterson believed the reason for losing the role was more personal - she had once walked in on the same network executive in bed with her boyfriend. The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island was a box office failure, and Peterson never had the chance to play Elvira in a rebooted series. Instead, she made her debut as Elvira in the 1988 film Elvira: Mistress of the Dark and has since reprised the role multiple times.