Extensive Definition
Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell was a fictional
character in the 1960s television show
Gilligan's
Island. Played by Natalie
Schafer, the character was a rich, spoiled socialite, married to Thurston
Howell, III.
While her husband always called her "Lovey," the
other castaways always called her Mrs. Howell. There are only two
times someone besides Thurston calls her Lovey: in the pilot, when
the radio is announcing the missing people, the announcer says
"Thurston Howell, III, and his wife, Lovey;" and in the episode in
which
Gilligan thinks he wins the lottery and invites all the people
into the Howells' club,
the Professor refers to Mr. and Mrs. Howell as Thurston and
Lovey.
In one episode in which the Howells were having
marital problems, she mentioned her maiden name
was Wentworth. Hardly anything was ever learned about her life
before being marooned with her fellow castaways, but she mentioned
in one episode that she spoke "perfect" French
and Italian,
hinting at a classical
education. Thurston Howell also indicates that Lovey, or at
least her family, had money of their own; Mr Howell describes her
family as being loaded. She also claimed in one episode to being a
member of the
Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).
Although she was spoiled and preoccupied with
social status, Mrs. Howell was also kind and genuinely cared about
the well-being of her fellow castaways. She frequently served as
something of a mother figure to the two younger female castaways,
Ginger
Grant and Mary Ann
Summers, offering advice (though she sometimes also displays
jealousy toward the two younger women).
Several times she acted as a motherly figure to
Gilligan, such as psychoanalyzing him,
adopting him, and
praising him for his accomplishments when no one else did. She
often plotted with her husband several times to
steal/access/manipulate things from the other survivors. She once
tried to get Gilligan and Mary Ann to wed, she and her husband kept
a gold mine secret from the rest of the group, divulging secrets
about stolen jewelry from a parrot, scheming to convince a burnt
out artist to leave the island and get through to an uncivilized
jungle boy played by Kurt
Russell.
It was once quoted by Thurston Howell himself
that their brilliance together was only succeeded by their greed.
They had also proven to have once had several houses and several
staffs of servants, including an upstairs maid, a downstairs maid
and a butler whose butler served him breakfast in bed. Thurston
once quoted that the neighborhood of one million dollars apiece was
considered a slum area where they resided.