Gidget

This series was based on the popular movie series of the same name starring Sandra Dee. Newcomer Sally Field is perfectly cast as Frances "Gidget" Laurence. Sally Field is the star of the show along with Don Porter who played her father, Dr. Russell Lawrence, professor. Betty Connor played her sister, Ann, and she has a brother-in-law. Her best friend, Larue is hysterical. The series was light-hearted with plenty of memorable guest stars like Bonnie Franklin, Richard Dreyfuss, and more. While the series only lasted a season with 32 episodes, it's still enjoyable and light-hearted perfect for the summer months. It's hard to believe that it has been 50 years since Sally Field debut on to our hearts as lovable Gidget. Who would have imagined that she would go on to play the flying nun, win 2 Academy Awards, an Emmy, and more in her long career. It's time that Sally Field got the highest honor of the Kennedy Center Honors.

By the time ABC filmed the 1965-1966 television version of "Gidget," Frederick Kohner's 1957 novel of that name (based on the adventures of his daughter Kathy) had already provided the basis for three motion pictures. Unlike the Gidget films, however, the television series does not focus on Gidget's romantic involvements. We rarely see her boyfriend Jeff, who is a student at Princeton; and her romantic interests are primarily limited to ill-advised infatuations that do not last beyond a single episode. The television series devotes most of its attention to Gidget's relations with her family, her peers, and her teachers. As with the movies, surfing is an underlying theme, but much of the action takes place away from the beach, and deals with such mundane subjects as school work, dating, getting a job, and learning to drive, as well as more unusual ones such as escaping from a "haunted" house, or evading a witch's "curse." In coping with life, Frances Lawrence, whose diminutive stature earned her the nickname "Gidget" (a contraction of "Girl" and "Midget"), gets advice, sought and unsought, from her father Russ (Don Porter), a UCLA English professor, her sister Anne (Betty Conner), her brother-in-law John (Pete Duel), and her best friend Larue (Lynette Winter). "Gidget" captures the different dynamic that exists in a one-parent, one-child, family--Gidget and her father are especially close. Anne is a somewhat conventional meddling older sister who is trying to make Gidget into a lady. John is an aspiring psychologist who attributes nearly everything to subliminal motives. Gidget customarily ignores their suggestions. Larue is a rather eccentric figure, who visits the beach clad in clothing that conceals everything but her face (and sometimes that as well) because she is allergic to sunlight. Gidget often gets together with Larue to consume exotic sandwiches and discuss whatever problem she is facing. Despite her eccentricities, Larue's judgment is often better than Gidget's, but she sometimes gets drawn into Gidget's misadventures against her will.

Sally Field landed the role of Gidget through a summer workshop screen test. She had participated in secondary school dramatic productions, but she had had no on-screen experience apart from being a supernumerary in the forgettable 1962 film, "Moon Pilot." Although 19 when the program was filmed, Field is entirely credible as the 15-year-old Gidget. And, in mastering this role, she gave early evidence of the acting talent that was to win her many parts (from the Flying Nun to Mary Todd Lincoln) and awards. Her attitude toward the filming of "Gidget" was "absolute total glee," and her performances reflect this. Don Porter served as her mentor; and there was good chemistry between them, both on and off camera. Similarly, Field described Lynette Winter as her "best friend" in real life as well as in the show. Winter brought to her role a veritable arsenal of facial expressions, and a talent for physical comedy perhaps even greater than Field's. It is hard to imagine "Gidget" without these three. Conner and Duel successfully portray an annoying sister and brother-in-law; and Duel displays surprising aptitude for slapstick when he accidentally disconnects the water supply hose to the washing machine, drenching Anne, Gidget, and himself (we are left to wonder what the soaked cat, watching from a corner, thought of this human folly).

"Gidget" is a conglomeration of 1960s artifacts--cars, clothes, hair styles, dances, record players, dial telephones, VHF/UHF television sets, and manual typewriters. In terms of its cast, subject matter and attitudes, it is also a product of its times. Occasionally, there are explicit, if not emphatic, references to sex, and to Gidget's physique. And the cast includes African-Americans playing minor, but respectable, characters. But the women are definitely not liberated. One of Gidget's male acquaintances commands her, "Go fetch food, woman!" Her father tells one of her male classmates what to do "when a woman clamors for complete equality with men," and implies that women really do not want such equality. Gidget receives a spanking in one episode, as does a visiting Swedish female student in another. (No male characters suffer this indignity.) As Gidget concludes in one postscript, "I'd set back women's rights a hundred years--exactly where they belonged." Today, some of this may grate on the nerves, even of those not sensitized to gender issues. On the other hand, in several episodes, Gidget attempts to improve the behavior of her male associates, and, more generally, her participation in surfing involved breaking into what had been a male preserve.

An episode of "Gidget" typically ends with sage advice from Russ, or--better--a humorous epigram from Gidget herself, such as: "You're only young once; but if you work it right, once is enough." Or: "It's too bad you can't be born with maturity, then lose it when you don't need it anymore."

Frances 'Gidget' Lawrence, was adorable young Sally Field (Forest Gump), the girl who was always going to the beach with a wind breaker. Her best friend was always all covered up except for her face, which was well shaded by the huge hat. She was allergic to the sun! I always wondered why they had to wear wind breakers to go to the beach. Later I lived in California and found that the water of the Pacific Ocean is very cold. The beaches were hilly. I don't remember where the series actually took place. The series was black and white. I watched it dubbed. I remember the show as a whole but not much detail. Gidget herself was a lot of fun. I have good memories of the series.

America's favorite beach girl Gidget after being played by Sandra Dee on screen came to the small screen and it gave Sally Field her first big break. But it was a double edged sword. Who but Field suspected she actually had acting chops. But this show and The Flying Nun left her type cast for years before she showed what she could do in Norma Rae and Places In The Heart.

Not much difference in the big screen and small screen Gidgets. Francine 'Gidget' Lawrence is a happy go lucky teen with surfing and boys on her mind. Her family unit was her widowed father Don Porter and married sister Betty Conner, her rather dense but lovable husband Peter Deuel and what we would now call her BFF Larue, Lynette Winter.

Every week Gidget would get into her usual teen troubles and get out of them after consultation with dear old Dad.

One thing I liked about this show was Don Porter. If you think Hugh Beaumont or Lorne Greene was the wisest TV dad than you never saw Gidget. Always professorial for that's what he did and totally unflappable in any situation Don Porter to me was the ideal TV dad. This man never, ever lost his cool in any situation. Granted these were G rated teen situations still the man was amazing.

If you were to predict Sally Field's career would boast two Oscars within the next quarter century when Gidget was on you would have been sent forthwith to the rubber room. One never knows what lies ahead.

This short lived series was very important for many of us just becoming teens in the mid-60's. Her clothing, hairdos, language and relationships with friends and boyfriends were fun to tune into once a week and see what life was like (although somewhat not believable!!) for a teenage girl growing up near the beach in California. Sally Field was a darling girl, perfectly cast here, not afraid to make faces, cry, or even do physical comedy in this series. Gidget had her own bedroom with her own Princess telephone (we all wanted one), lived in a wonderful two story home with a beautiful yard and got to drive her dad's cool car sometimes. And yes, she got into and out of a lot of trouble in the 22 minute show,but at that time in our lives, for a half hour, it was believable to many of us. Like The Donna Reed Show, Father Knows Best, and Leave It To Beaver, these were mild comedies, with gentle story lines, usually a moral to be learned, and left us feeling good about ourselves and maybe had a laugh or two during the half hour show. To many people today,this sounds corny and old-fashioned, but it felt like a safer, more comfortable world back then.