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1 article from 2005

6 September 2005 | From IMDb News

Bob Denver, the resilient comic actor who became a TV legend portraying wacky first mate Gilligan on the sitcom Gilligan's Island, died last Friday; he was 70. Denver's agent confirmed the news on Tuesday, with Entertainment Tonight first reporting the death. The actor, who had undergone quadruple heart bypass surgery previously this year, passed away at Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina, surrounded by his wife and four children. <p>Denver first appeared to TV audiences as the hip beatnik Maynard G. Krebs in the '60s sitcom The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis, playing second banana to lead Dwayne Hickman. Though the show ran for four years and made Denver a television star, it was his second big role that made him a TV icon: that of Gilligan on the zany sitcom Gilligan's Island. The TV show, created by Sherwood Schwartz and centering on seven mismatched castaways stranded on a desert island in the south Pacific, ran for only three years (1964-1967) and was derided by critics for its goofy humor, but its life in syndication proved endless. Audiences continually rediscovered the hijinks of the passengers of the SS Minnow, and its theme song ("Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale/a tale of a fateful trip&#133;") became one of the most memorable ever written. The stars of the show - including Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer ("the Skipper too/a millionaire and his wife...") - reunited with Denver for three highly-rated TV movies; only co-star Tina Louise (the "movie star") opted out of the reunions. Unlike a number of sitcom stars, Denver was noted for being extremely generous and thoughtful to cast members, and reportedly fought for equal billing for <I>Island</I> co-stars Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells, aka "the Professor and Mary Ann," who in the show's first season were referred to as "the rest" in the opening credits. (Johnson, Wells, and Louise now remain the only surviving cast members.) <p>Despite innumerable guest appearances of various sitcoms, the persona of Gilligan stayed with Denver throughout his life, as did that of Maynard G. Krebs (Denver appeared in a 1988 Dobie Gillis reunion TV movie), and the actor entitled his autobiography <I>Gilligan, Maynard and Me</I>. His last role was a cameo as Gilligan himself in the 2004 spoof Miss Cast Away. <p>Denver is survived by his wife, Dreama, and children Patrick, Megan, Emily and Colin. <I>--Prepared by IMDb staff</I>

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1 article from 2005