“Forgotten Hollywood”- Gilligan’s Island Alumnus has Died…
Russell Johnson was a television and cinematic actor best known as Professor Hinkley on the CBS sitcom Gilligan’s Island. Before accepting the assignment, he made producer Sherwood Schwartz promise that when he made scientific statements, they would be accurate. His career spanned over four decades.
Johnson enrolled at the Actors Lab in Hollywood under the GI Bill. Fellow actor Paul Henreid saw him in a play there, and offered him a chance to play a villain in For Men Only. He became close friends to Audie Murphy, and later appeared in three of his movies; Column South and Tumbleweed in 1953, and Ride Clear of Diablo in 1954. His early roles were in Westerns and science fiction, such as It Came from Outer Space, This Island Earth, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and The Space Children. He also starred in Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki. After Gilligan’s Island, he wasin Three Days of the Condor and MacArthur. RUSSELL JOHNSON
Russell had a prolific small screen career with notable recurring and guest-starring roles in The Black Saddle, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Death Valley Days, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Ben Casey, 77 Sunset Strip, Lassie, The Invaders, Ironside, The F.B.I., Newhart, Dallas, and on the NBC soap opera Santa Barbara.
His death leaves Tina Louise and Dawn Wells as the last two surviving original cast members of Gilligan’s Island. The erudite Russell Johnson was 89.
Dave Madden was a staple of 1960’s and 1970s television. He’s best remembered as a cast member of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, and as the fictional manager of The Partridge Family… Reuben Kincaid. Madden also made guest appearances on Bewitched, The Love Boat, Happy Days, Fantasy Island, and had a recurring role on Alice.
Antenna TV will pay special tribute to the funnyman by airing 14 episodes of The Partridge Family on Saturday, beginning at 1p (ET). Dave Madden (right) was 82.
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 16th, 2014 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
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