http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-etden074414703sep07,0,4650811.story?coll=ny-entertainment-bigpix http://www.bobdenver.com/ TV's Gilligan dead at 70
For actor Bob Denver, a 'three-hour tour' lasted a lifetime
Bob Denver (AP)
BY DIANE WERTS
STAFF WRITER
September 7, 2005
Bob Denver, who came to personify the loopiness of 1960s sitcoms as the dim-witted title sailor of "Gilligan's Island," has died at age 70. The actor had been battling cancer and had also undergone quadruple heart bypass surgery this spring. Denver's death last Friday at North Carolina's Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital was confirmed yesterday to The Associated Press by his agent, Mike Eisenstadt.
Denver had spent 40 years being celebrated for - and battling the typecasting of - his slapstick work as the pesty first mate whose haplessness kept "seven stranded castaways" stuck on an "uncharted desert isle," as memorably sung weekly over the credits of CBS' 1964-67 series. The simplistic sitcom overshadowed Denver's earlier nuanced performance in CBS' 1959-63 comedy "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" as work-avoiding beatnik teen Maynard G. Krebs. And its incessant repeats in syndication and cable made it difficult for Denver to resonate in roles other than the clumsy island screwup.
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