History Main / CollegeWidow

Compare LikesOlderWomen, when a character has a preference for much older potential partners, and its SubTrope, StacysMom, when teenagers/young adults regard a middle-aged individual as hot.

* ''Theater/TheCollegeWidow1904'': By virtue of being the college president's daughter, Jane is the only woman on Atwater's campus. Despite the play being the TropeMaker, she's a {{downplayed}} example because she doesn't encourage attention from the whole student population but is asked by her father to charm one particular high-school graduate into attending Atwater College. Therefore, she only focuses on him. It might seem to be the TropeNamer if it weren't for the fact that the expression "college widow" already existed since the nineteenth century but it's definitely the TropeMaker.

%% * ''Theatre/{{Allegro}}'': Beulah always tags along when her sister goes to the campus to visit her boyfriend Charlie. Because she's single, there's more than one boy who would kill to go on a date with her.

* ''VideoGame/TheSpellcastingSeries'': In ''Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance'', Hillary Tickingclock becomes one when her husband dies; [[spoiler:a situation that ends when her husband is brought back from the dead at the end of the story]]. Of course, she has been regularly screwing the students (and anyone else who drops by) before the professor dies, [[spoiler: and continues doing so after he comes back to life]].

* ''{{Series/Bones}}'': In "The Beaver in the Otter", the VictimOfTheWeek, an underachieving college student, had been carrying on an affair with the college President's wife. Reading between the lines, it seems that she regularly finds young college boys to have affairs with behind her husband's back.

%% * ''Theatre/{{Allegro}}'': Beulah is something like this.

See also LikesOlderWomen.

%% * Beulah in Creator/RodgersAndHammerstein's ''Theatre/{{Allegro}}'' is something like this.

* ''Film/AnimalHouse'': The dean's wife. Although her husband is still living, he doesn't pay too much attention to her (preferring instead to use her as arm candy), and she finds him stuffy and boring. So she turns to the frat boys and their WackyFratboyHijinks successfully.
* ''Film/BullDurham'': Although the younger men Annie Savoy seduces aren't from the local college, they're belong to the local minor-league baseball team.

%% * Beulah in Creator/RodgersAndHammerstein's ''Allegro'' is something like this.

* ''Theater/TheCollegeWidow1904'': Jane Witherspoon, the daughter of a professor at Atwater College, is tasked by her father to ensure Billy Bolton, a football star, doesn't attend (and therefore play for) their rival, Bingham College. It might seem to be the TropeNamer if it weren't for the fact that the expression "college widow" already existed since the nineteenth century. It doesn't help that while TheProtagonist seductress is the only woman on campus, she's not actually a widow.

* ''Theater/TheCollegeWidow1904'': Jane Witherspoon, the daughter of a professor, is tasked by her father to ensure Billy Bolton, a football star, doesn't attend (and therefore play for) their rival, Bingham College. It might seem to be the TropeNamer if it weren't for the fact that the expression "college widow" already existed since the nineteenth century. It doesn't help that while TheProtagonist seductress is the only girl near the campus, she's not actually a widow.

* ''Film/TheCollegeWidow1927'': Featuring Creator/DeloresCostello as the title character, Jane Witherspoon, this film is the TropeNamer. The daughter of a professor, Jane was technically a bit young to be considered a true college widow but filled the role anyway. This itself was a remake of a 1915 silent film of the same name, in which Jane was played by Ethel Clayton.

%% [[AC:Theatre]]

* Thelma "Hot Toddy" Todd (Connie Bailey) in the 1932 Creator/MarxBrothers movie ''Film/HorseFeathers''. [[spoiler:It turns out that she's at least partially a spy for a rival college, using the men she dates to get information that will help the other college's football team win.]]
* ''Film/HorseFeathers'' was in fact mostly a spoof of a 1927 film called simply ''Film/TheCollegeWidow'' featuring Delores Costello as the title character, Jane Witherspoon. The daughter of a professor, Jane was technically a bit young to be considered a true college widow but filled the role anyway. This itself was a remake of a 1915 silent film of the same name, in which Jane was played by Ethel Clayton.

* Vivien Leigh plays a variation on the college widow in ''A Yank at Oxford'', the variation being that she's not really a widow, just the neglected wife of a much older husband.
* The coach's wife in ''Film/TeaAndSympathy'' wasn't exactly a widow, although her husband didn't pay much attention to her, which is why she turned her attention to the young man whom his more 'hearty' classmates thought was gay... but he wasn't.
* The wife of the dean in ''Film/AnimalHouse''. Although her husband is still living, he doesn't pay too much attention to her (preferring instead to use her as arm candy), and she finds him stuffy and boring. So she turns to the frat boys and their WackyFratboyHijinks...successfully.
* Annie Savoy in ''Film/BullDurham'' is basically this, although the younger men she seduces aren't from the local college, they're from the local minor-league baseball team.

* In the hockey film ''Film/{{Youngblood|1986}}'' with Creator/RobLowe, Patrick Swayze, and Keanu Reeves, the character Miss [=McGill=] owns a boarding house and seduces and then sleeps with the players who board with her.

* Hilda "Sharpie" Corners from Creator/RobertAHeinlein's novel ''Literature/TheNumberOfTheBeast'' is explicitly described as a college widow (although she protests that all of her paramours were age-appropriate). Given Heinlein's history of creating retro-flavored futures, this may be an instance of a deliberate use of an outdated trope to indicate that the book does not, as it initially seems, start TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture of ''our'' universe.

* In the ''{{Series/Bones}}'' episode "The Beaver in the Otter" the VictimOfTheWeek, an underachieving college student, had been carrying on an affair with the college President's wife. Reading between the lines, it seems that she regularly finds young college boys to have affairs with behind her husband's back.

* In ''[[VideoGame/TheSpellcastingSeries Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance]]'', Hillary Tickingclock becomes one when her husband dies. [[spoiler: This status ends when her husband is brought back from the dead at the end of the story]]. Of course, she had been regularly screwing the students (and anyone else who dropped by) before the professor died, [[spoiler: and continued doing so after he came back to life]].

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* In the hockey film ''Film/{{Youngblood}}'' with Creator/RobLowe, Patrick Swayze, and Keanu Reeves, the character Miss [=McGill=] owns a boarding house and seduces and then sleeps with the players who board with her.

* ''Film/HorseFeathers'' was in fact mostly a spoof of a 1927 film called simply ''The College Widow'' featuring Delores Costello as the title character, Jane Witherspoon. The daughter of a professor, Jane was technically a bit young to be considered a true college widow but filled the role anyway. This itself was a remake of a 1915 silent film of the same name, in which Jane was played by Ethel Clayton.
%% * Possibly playing on the 1915 film was a 1916 production called ''Dad's College Widow,'' but little is known about the story.

* In the hockey film ''Youngblood'' with Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, and Keanu Reeves, the character Miss [=McGill=] owns a boarding house and seduces and then sleeps with the players who board with her.

!This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16701350890.10728400 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.

* Possibly playing on the 1915 film was a 1916 production called ''Dad's College Widow,'' but little is known about the story.

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* Beulah in Creator/RodgersAndHammerstein's ''Allegro'' is something like this.

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* In ''Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance'', Hillary Tickingclock becomes one when her husband dies. [[spoiler: This status ends when her husband is brought back from the dead at the end of the story]]. Of course, she had been regularly screwing the students (and anyone else who dropped by) before the professor died, [[spoiler: and continued doing so after he came back to life]].

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/TheCollegeWidow1927 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/college_widow_0.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''One college widow\\

Forty widoers'']]

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/TheCollegeWidow1927 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/college_widow.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:''One college widow\\
Forty widowers'']]

[[caption-width-right:''Pne college widow\\
Forty widowers]]