Bob Denver, island's Gilligan, dead at 70

Posted:
Sep 6, 2005

Bob Denver, forever identified by millions of couch potatoes with luckless but lovable "first mate" Gilligan on Gilligan's Island, died Friday at 70.

Denver died at Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina of complications from treatment that he was undergoing for cancer, agent Mike Eisenstadt said Tuesday. Earlier this year, Denver underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery.

His wife Dreama and children Patrick, Megan, Emily and Colin were with him. "He was my everything and I will love him forever," Dreama Denver said in a statement.

Besides his iconic role as one of the seven castaways in the 1964-67 series, the Skipper's "little buddy" voiced Gilligan in two Filmation Associates animated shows: The New Adventures of Gilligan, broadcast on ABC from 1974 to 1975, and the 13-episode Gilligan's Planet, which aired on CBS in 1982.

Denver also guested as himself in "Gilligan," a 1994 episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and "Simpson Tide," a 1998 episode of The Simpsons.

"Gilligan" was the last name of the character played by Denver on Gilligan's Island; his first name was Willie, but this was never stated on the series.

Denver's live-action series roles also included bearded beatnik pal Maynard G. Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-63), Rufus Butterworth in The Good Guys (1968-70), Dusty in Dusty's Trail (1973) and Junior in another castaway comedy, the 1975-76 Saturday morning kids' show Far Out Space Nuts.

Born on January 9, 1935 in New Rochelle, New York, Denver most recently lived in West Virginia before his hospitalization. He attended college at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles when he decided that he wanted to become an actor.

Denver worked as a mailman and as an athletic coach and history and math teacher at Corpus Christi Children's School of Pacific Palisades, California before successfully screen-testing for the part of Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. His character in the CBS series would shriek when he heard the word "work." Krebs wanted to frequent coffee houses and play the bongos.

In his sailor hat, Gilligan was both hated and loved by the Minnow's skipper, Jonas Grumby, who was played by Alan Hale Jr.

"As silly as it seems to all of us, it has made a difference in a lot of children's lives. Gilligan is a buffoon that makes mistakes, and I cannot tell you how many kids come up and say, 'But you loved him anyway,'" said Dawn Wells, who played castaway Mary Ann Summers, once said.

After its cancellation by CBS, Gilligan's Island seemed to live forever in syndicated reruns, as well as such reunion films as The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981). The series also spawned the TBS reality series The Real Gilligan's Island.

In 2001, three of the four surviving original "castaways," including Denver, narrated and reminisced for Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three Hour Tour in History. Other actors portrayed the original seven cast members.

"I knew that by assembling seven different people and forcing them to live together, the show would have great philosophical implications," said Gilligan's Island writer-creator Sherwood Schwartz, who claimed the show had a message along with the canned laughter.

Late Show host David Letterman once offered a top 10 list of "the top 10 things that will make you stand up and cheer." He shouted out Denver's name to wild applause.

In a 2001 Associated Press interview, Denver said that he liked to look daily to see what prices Gilligan's Island memorabilia were getting on eBay.

"It was the mid-'70s when I realized it wasn't going off the air," he said. "I certainly didn't set out to have a series rerun forever, but it's not a bad experience at all."

Bob Denver had a son, Colin, with Dreama Perry, whom he married in 1976.

Two other marriages, to Maggie Ryan from 1960 to 1966, and Jean Webber, from 1967 to 1970, ended in divorce. He had two children and one stepson with Ryan, as well as a child from an earlier marriage, which ended in divorce as well.

Son Patrick is a model maker and miniature set fabricator who has worked on such films as Batman Returns, Mortal Combat and Titanic.