- LOS ANGELES - It was supposed
to be just a three-hour tour and, if the critics had their way, "Gilligan's
Island" would have been forgotten after its three short seasons on
television. But somewhere along the line in rerun eternity, television
audiences fell in love with the goofy character of Gilligan played by Bob
Denver, who died Friday at age 70.
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- It became a love affair that endured throughout the life
of Denver, who died of complications related to cancer treatment at Wake
Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina. He had lived in recent
years in Princeton, W.Va.
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- "One thing I can say about Bob and the show is he
entertained generations, and everybody approached us and him in particular
with love and a smile," said Russell Johnson, who played the egg-headed
professor on "Gilligan's Island." "That's a tremendous legacy
for someone from Hollywood to leave."
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- Gilligan may have been his signature role, but when he
took the part in 1964 Denver was already widely known to TV audiences for
another iconic character, Maynard G. Krebs, the bearded beatnik friend
of Dwayne Hickman's Dobie in the "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,"
which aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963.
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- "In all the time I knew Bob, personally and professionally,
we never had a harsh word," said Hickman, who added the two remained
close friends over the years, even though they were as different in real
life as the characters they portrayed.
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- California state Sen. Sheila James Kuehl, who played
Dobie's love-struck pursuer, Zelda Gilroy, remembered Denver as a mentor,
both in acting and life.
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- "What he taught me about acting was when you work
to make the other person look good, you end up looking good yourself,"
she said. "What he taught me about life was that you could love your
work, but it was really more important to love your friends and family."
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- Maynard G. Krebs' only desire was to play the bongos
and hang out at coffee houses, and he would shriek with terror every time
the word "work" was mentioned.
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- Gilligan on the other hand was industrious but inept.
His bungling stranded his tour boat's skipper and their five passengers
on an uncharted desert island for all of TV eternity and, when the seven
castaways actually got off the island in a film sequel, they wound up back
there when Gilligan bungled the reunion cruise a year later.
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- His character was as lovable as he was incompetent, and
viewers embraced the skinny goofball kid with the white sailor hat. So
did the Minnow's skipper, Jonas Grumby, played by Alan Hale Jr., and who
always referred to Gilligan affectionately as "little buddy."
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- "As silly as it seems to all of us, it has made
a difference in a lot of children's lives,"
- Dawn Wells, who played farm girl Mary Ann Summers, once
said. "Gilligan is a buffoon that makes mistakes and I cannot tell
you how many kids come up and say, `But you loved him anyway.'"
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- TV critics were less kind, dismissing "Gilligan's
Island" as corny at best and stupid at worst. It was canceled by the
network in 1967, but found new audiences in syndicated reruns.
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- "It was the mid-'70s when I realized it wasn't going
off the air," Denver told The Associated Press in 2001. "I certainly
didn't set out to have a series rerun forever, but it's not a bad experience
at all."
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- After "Gilligan's Island," Denver starred in
other TV series, including "The Good Guys" and "Dusty's
Trail." He also made numerous film and TV appearances.
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- But he never escaped the role of Gilligan, so much so
that in one of "Late Show" host David Letterman's top 10 lists
- things that would make the studio audience applaud - one of the items
Letterman announced was Denver's presence. The actor's brief appearance
yielded a raucous response.
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- Born in New Rochelle, N.Y., on Jan 9, 1935, Denver discovered
acting while studying law at Loyola University in Los Angeles. While struggling
to make it as an actor, he taught private school in Pacific Palisades and
worked for a time at a post office.
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