Gidget

Gidget
Gidget, first edition dustjacket
First appearance	Gidget, The Little Girl With Big Ideas (1957)
Last appearance	The New Gidget: "Make Waves, Not War" (1988)
Created by	Frederick Kohner
Portrayed by	Sandra Dee Deborah Walley Cindy Carol Sally Field Karen Valentine Monie Ellis Kathy Gori (voice) Caryn Richman Sabrina Kramnich (stage)
Information
Full name	Franziska Hofer (novels) Frances Elizabeth Lawrence (TV and film)
Nickname(s)	Franzie Gidget
Gender	female
Occupation	Student. Also waitress (Cher Papa), teacher (Gidget in Love and Gidget Gets Married), fashion model (Gidget Goes Parisienne), tour guide (Gidget Goes New York and Gidget Grows Up) and travel agent (Gidget's Summer Reunion and The New Gidget).
Family	Professor Russell Lawrence (father) Anne Cooper (sister) John Cooper (brother-in-law)
Spouse(s)	Jeff "Moondoggie" Griffin (by the 1980s)
Relatives	Danielle "Dani" Collins-Griffin (niece)

Gidget /ˈɡɪdʒɪt/ is a fictional character created by author Frederick Kohner (based on his teenage daughter, Kathy) in his 1957 novel, Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas. The novel follows the adventures of a teenage girl and her surfing friends on the beach in Malibu. The name Gidget is a portmanteau of "girl" and "midget". Following the novel's publication, the character appeared in several films, television series and television movies.

The original Gidget was created by Frederick Kohner in his 1957 novel Gidget, The Little Girl With Big Ideas (reprinted numerous times under the shortened title Gidget, by which it is more widely known), written in the first person and based on the accounts of his daughter Kathy (now Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman) of the surf culture of Malibu Point. Kohner, a prolific screenwriter with one Academy Award nomination, published seven sequels to this novel, five of them original novels:

Kohner also wrote two novelizations adapted from films of the same titles, based on original stories by Ruth Brooks Flippen.

Kohner, a Czechoslovakian Jew, worked in the German film industry as a screenwriter until 1933 when he emigrated to Hollywood after the Nazis started removing Jewish credits from films. Over the coming decades Kohner and his wife Franzie raised their two daughters by the beach while he toiled as a screenwriter for Columbia Pictures. As his children grew into American teenagers he noticed that his daughter Kathy in particular was drawn into a very specific, regional, contemporary slice of American teenage culture – the surf culture.

Surfing was a then minor youth movement that built its foundation around a sport, love of the beach, and jargon that must have proved a challenge to an Eastern European immigrant. The details fascinated Kohner, who was empathetic with his daughter's feminist intention to participate in a "boys-only" sport. A book was conceived and Kathy became her father's muse as he delved into the surfing world with his daughter as his guide. Over a six-week period Kohner wove the stories she told into a novel, which he titled upon completion with her nickname, Gidget.