Bob Denver

Robert Osbourne Denver graduated from college with a degree in political science, then caoched physical education and even taught math and history at a California elementary school.

But today, this well-educated, smart, soft-spoken man is best remembered for this…

Gilligan’s Island only lasted three seasons in the mid-1960s, but thanks to reruns and syndication the show has effectively never been off the air since.

And, like so many other popular TV actors, Bob Denver found himself typecast.

So, like many of his peers, Denver stopped resisting the Typecast and embraced it, appearing in several made-for-tv Gilligan’s Island movies, as well as other walk-on roles in which he played Gilligan.

In 1993, Denver wrote a book called “Gilligan, Maynard, and Me,” a reference to the other popular TV series he co-starred in, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

The day I met him, the day before Thanksgiving in 1993, I brought my 13- and 11-year-old daughters to meet the man they knew only as Gilligan.

So here now, from 1993, Bob Denver…

Bob Denver died in 2005 at age 70.

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