Natalie Schafer

Natalie Schafer (November 5, 1900 (1900-11-05) – April 10, 1991) was an American actress.

Early life and career

Born to a Jewish family in Red Bank, New Jersey, Schafer began her career as an actress on Broadway before moving to Los Angeles in 1941 to work in films. She played several supporting roles during the 1940s (such as the wife of a German officer in the 1942 film Reunion in France) and 1950s, and also appeared most notably in The Snake Pit (1948) and Anastasia (1956) while returning to New York City to live and work between film roles.

Schafer appeared on Broadway in 17 plays between 1928 and 1959, almost always playing supporting roles. Most of her Broadway appearances were in short-run plays, with the exceptions of Lady in the Dark (1941–42), The Doughgirls (1942–44), and Romanoff and Juliet (1957–58). She also appeared in stock and regional productions of plays.

Schafer is best known for the television series Gilligan's Island (1964–67), playing the role of the millionaire's wife, "Lovey Howell." She reprised her role in the made-for-TV, Gilligan's Island, movies that were made after the show's demise, along with the animated spinoff, Gilligan's Planet, in 1982. Originally written as a humorless grande dame, Schafer worked with the writers to create a character not unlike the scatterbrain roles played in 1930s films by Mary Boland and Billie Burke. Schafer specifically suggested that the writers read the George S. Kaufman-Marc Connelly play Dulcy for its dizzy title character.

She continued acting until her late-80s and was a guest star on many TV series, including I Love Lucy in the 1950s. In the 1970s, Schafer joined the cast of the CBS soap opera Search for Tomorrow. Her most notable film appearance in later life was in The Day of the Locust (1975).

Jewish Actress

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