Tina Louise - why wasn't she a bigger star?

She won a Golden Globe for her role in 'God's Little Acre' (1958) and did a bunch of other B-rated flicks. She dabbled in a bunch of stuff: Broadway, Italian cinema, an album of her singing classic like "Embraceable You." Even wrote 3 books.

According to her, Gilligan's Island ruined her career and typecast her as a goofy sit-come sexpot. I'm not sure why she didn't take off as a mega star...she had a bunch of false starts, including a character on Dallas (which was HUGE in it's hey-day.) and soap operas.

Personally, having watched her movies, I think she is only a so-so actor. She's a member of The Actors' Studio and studied with some great people, but she just never had the chops to become a superstar. Still, a perfectly decent and consistent life for her craft. That's my 2 cents anyways.

Because she wasn't a very good actor?

I remember hearing she was difficult and would act like a big star before becoming a big star. Never works in any industry.

She played a cop on an old episode of Cannon and I thought she was pretty good.

She was on Dallas for a milisecond as Jr’s mistress. I think he threw her out a window. Her acting style was campy, more suited to comedy and soap operas.

"Tina Louise - why wasn't she a bigger star?"

Why would she be?

There is nothing special about her. There is a sea of gorgeous humans in Hollywood.

Julie Newmar wasn't a Big Star and she seemed far more talented than Mz Blacker.
Tina Louise wasn't even all that great looking if you took away the make-up.
Probably great looking if you knew her in person, but not striking by Modeling standards.
She seemed more a Mannequin people could make up to be what they wanted her to look like.