Early Life and Career
Born in Red Bank, New Jersey, Natalie Schafer was the eldest child of Jennie and Charles Schafer. She began her career as an actress on Broadway before moving to Los Angeles in 1941 to work in films.
Schafer appeared on Broadway in seventeen plays between 1927 and 1959, often playing supporting roles. Most of these appearances were in short-run plays, with the exceptions of Lady in the Dark (1941-1942), The Doughgirls (1942-1944), and Romanoff and Juliet (1957-1958). She was also seen in a revival of Six Characters in Search of an Author, directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie (1955-1956). She also appeared in stock and regional productions of plays.
Schafer appeared in many films, usually portraying beautiful sophisticates, but she is best known for the situation comedy Gilligan's Island, playing the role of the millionaire's wife, Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell. She reprised her role in the made-for-TV spin-off films 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 was a guest star on many television series, including The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse (The Sisters, with Grace Kelly, 1951), I Love Lucy (1954), Producers' Showcase (The Petrified Forest, with Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and Henry Fonda, 1955), The Beverly Hillbillies (1964), Mayberry RFD (1970), The Brady Bunch (1974), and Phyllis (1976). In 1971-72, Schafer joined the cast of the CBS daytime-serial, Search for Tomorrow. Her final performance was given in 1990, in the television film I'm Dangerous Tonight, opposite Anthony Perkins and Corey Parker. The actress also guest-starred, opposite William Shatner, on 1960's "Thriller," in its first season.
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