|
 "He died at 5:21 a.m. of natural causes at home in Washington
state," agent Michael Eisenstadt said, adding that Johnson's
wife and his daughter were at his side.
"Gilligan's Island," which was created by producer Sherwood
Schwartz, ran for three seasons on the CBS network, from 1964 to
1967, and attracted even more popularity in syndication.
"I worked with him for over 20 years. He was a gentleman, a
great guy and a family man, an iconic figure," Eisenstadt said.
"In the history of television ‘Gilligan's Island' was one of the
most re-run shows. He'll be missed. He was old-time Hollywood."
Actress Dawn Wells, who played the perky Mary Ann Summers in the
show, posted a photograph on Facebook of herself along with
Johnson and Bob Denver, who starred as the zany Gilligan and
died in 2005.
"My 2 favorite people are now gone. The Professor past away this
morning. My heart is broken," she wrote.
The show followed four men and three women stranded on a
tropical island after being shipwrecked on the S.S. Minnow.
Johnson, a decorated World War Two veteran who was a bombardier
on a B-24 Liberator shot down over the Philippines in 1945,
played Professor Roy Hinkley, simply called "The Professor."
Johnson had appeared in Westerns including "Law and Order"
(1953) starring future President Ronald Reagan and sci-fi films
including "It Came from Outer Space" (1953), "This Island Earth"
(1955) and "Attack of the Crab Monsters" (1957).
John Gabriel, best known for his later role on the soap opera
"Ryan's Hope," initially was cast in the Professor role but the
producers wanted someone else. Johnson said he twice turned down
auditions for "Gilligan's Island" because he was in the running
for starring roles on other series.
"I didn't want to be one of seven," he told the Archive of
American Television in 2004.
The other roles fell through, he auditioned and got the job.
The cast also included Alan Hale Jr. as "The Skipper," Jim
Backus as millionaire Thurston Howell III, Natalie Schafer as
his wife, and Tina Louise as movie star Ginger.
"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful
trip," the show's theme song promised, as the crew of two and
their five passengers sailed into a storm on what was supposed
to be a three-hour pleasure tour from Honolulu.
For all his supposed scientific expertise, The Professor failed
to devise a way to get the castaways off the island — even as a
procession of guest stars successfully dropped in and were able
to get out.
[to top of second column] |
 "The Professor was the glue that held the more
colorful characters in place in the Gilligan mosaic," Schwartz wrote
in his book "Inside Gilligan's Island." "And Russell Johnson played
him perfectly: intellectual, serious, sincere. He supplied the logic
on the island and he supplied it so well that he convinced the other
castaways and the viewers as well that whatever he said was
scientifically sound."
MARY ANN'S NAVEL
Schwartz, who later produced "The Brady Bunch" series, kept
"Gilligan's Island" completely chaste, even with the voluptuous Tina
Louise and former Miss Nevada Dawn Wells parading around.
"He kept its innocence," Johnson said of Schwartz.
"In those days, we were working in a situation where you couldn't
see a woman's navel. I mean it," he told the Archive of American
Television. "On Dawn Wells' shorts, they had to bring it up a little
bit so you didn't see her navel. They were fighting all the time
with Tina Louise's cleavage."
Johnson said that in one episode, a character played by Zsa Zsa
Gabor showed up on the island. "She makes a play for The Professor.
She's really all over him. And he's talking about Lepidoptera (moths
and butterflies) and flora and fauna."
"They kept The Professor asexual," Johnson said.
One controversy involved the show's theme song. In the first season,
every character except The Professor and Mary Ann was mentioned — they were tossed off with the words "and the rest." Johnson and
Wells complained and their characters eventually were inserted into
the song.
The show ended after three seasons and 99 episodes.
There also were TV movie sequels like "Rescue from Gilligan's
Island" (1978), "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island" (1979) and "The
Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" (1981).
Johnson also appeared on a variety of other TV shows including
"Dallas" and "Dynasty." Denver's death in 2005 left Johnson as the
last surviving male cast member of "Gilligan's Island."
Johnson was born in 1924 in Pennsylvania and was sent to a boarding
school with his brothers when his father died.
He was married three times and had two children and one stepchild.
He married his third wife, Constance, in 1982 and they lived in
Washington state. His son, David, died of AIDS at age 39 in 1994 and
Johnson became active in AIDS fund-raising efforts.
(Reporting by Will Dunham; additional
reporting by Patricia Reaney; editing by Bill Trott and Leslie
Adler)
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