BOB DENVER

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Common misspelling: John Denver

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BOB DENVER BIOGRAPHY

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• Bob Denver was born on January 9, 1935 in New Rochelle, New York. He possibly had two brothers, Richard and Gerard and one sister Helen [Richard and Helen are mentioned in his autobiography – but Gerard is mentioned elsewhere by Denver].

• He graduated from Brownwood Senior High School in 1953 (Brownwood, TX).

• While attending Layola-Marymount University (Los Angeles), he decided he may want to try his hand at acting.  However, he also worked as a mailman, an athletic coach and a math teacher [at the Corpus Christi Children's School (Pacific Palisades, CA)] before focusing on acting as a career.

• In 1956, he had a physical setback when he broke his neck. Luckily, it kept him out of the army.

• Bob Denver’s first big break came in 1959, when he landed the role of Maynard G. Krebs on the popular television series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  He played the bongo-playing, beatnik friend of Dobie Gillis for four years until the show ended in 1964. He also made his film debut, although very small, in A Private’s Affair.  In 1963, he had his second movie appearance playing another beatnik character in Take Her, She’s Mine.

• In 1960, Denver married his first wife Maggie Ryan.  He had two children with Maggie and one stepson. They were divorced in 1966.  A daughter Megan and a son named Patrick Denver (b. 1959) who is a visual effects artist and has worked on many major movies.

• In 1964, he received the role that millions would remember him by, the funny, naive and bumbling Gilligan on the hit TV series Gilligan’s Island. [Trivia: the role was first offered to Jerry Van Dyke, and the characters full name is “Willy Gilligan”] The series lasted until 1967. Although the show only broke the top twenty in the ratings only once in its three seasons (98 episodes), it became a success story in syndication. [Note: the show, nor any of its performers were ever nominated for an Emmy during its three year run.]

• Bob Denver was married again in 1967, this time to Jean Webber, however, the marriage only lasted three years and they divorced in 1970 without having a child.

• After the end of Gilligan’s Island, he tried to make it in Hollywood and appeared in a few more films including Who’s Minding the Mint? In 1967 and then in 1968 both Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady? and The Sweet Ride.

• A career on the big screen did not seem to be panning out, so back to comedy so back to the world of sitcoms he wend and co-starred in the series The Good Guys for two seasons from 1968-1970 as the cab driver Rufus Butterworth.

• After The Good Guys ended, he moved onto the bright lights of Broadway and in 1970 replaced Woody Allen in the lead role of Play it Again Sam. He then toured with the show for a while afterwards.

• The reruns of Gilligan’s Island started to make a hit on the public’s consciousness and in 1973 Denver next starred in the TV series Dusty’s Trail, in which he plays an old West version of a Gilligan like character. Being typecast, in 1975, he starred in Sid and Marty Krofft’s kids comedy series Far Out Space Nuts, in which he plays a castaway lost in outer space.

• Being type cast as the clumsy castaway, he made the best of it and provided voice-overs for two animated series based on the television show, first, The New Adventures of Gilligan from 1974 to 1976, then again in 1980 for Gilligan’s Planet. 

• Denver finally found true love and married Dreama Perry in 1976.  They had a son, Colin. [Note: I have found references on the web that he may have possibly had a third wife or a relationship that led to a child – possibly a Carole Abrams which led to a daughter named Emily Denver (b. 1972)].

• The reruns of Gilligan’s Island were playing all over the country and it’s popularity hit new heights in the late 1980s.  To cash in on this newfound interest, a made-for-TV movie was produced in 1978 called Rescue From Gilligan’s Island. This did so well in the ratings that two more movies for television were made, The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island in 1978 and The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island in 1981.

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• In 1989, the first of the Minnow’s crew began to pass away, with the death of Mrs. Eunice Wentworth “Lovey” Howell (Natalie Shcafer), the Skipper [Jonas Grumby] (Alan Hale Jr.) in 1990, then Thurston Howell III (Jim Backus) in 1991.

• Denver published an autobiography in 1993 entitled Gilligan, Maynard & Me in which he talked about his life the people he has known, and his two signature roles.

• Although Gilligan’s Island has become a cultural icon over time, it still has never received the acclaim of other pop culture shows of the sixties and seventies.   In fact, when asked during a 1994 interview if the Smithsonian has asked for his hat for their museum, he made a comment that they would never do something as low as ask for it. (i.e., the show was never deemed worthy enough by “the establishment” to be on the same level as an All In The Family or MASH.

• Denver made a big buzz in 1998 when he was arrested for the possession of Marijuana and received six months probation.  In that year he also tried to revive his Maynard Krebs character in the made for TV special Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis. [Ed note: any connection?]

• Denver launched an oldies station from the basement of his own home in April 2004 called “Little Buddy Radio.”

• He criticized the reality show based on Gilligan’s Island in a West Virginia newspaper (Bluefield Daily) and told the Bluefield Daily that he thought the premise of the show would not work.

• In May of 2005, Bob Denver was rushed to the hospital and a quadruple bypass surgery was performed on his heart.

• This remarkable and funny man passed away on September 2, 2005 from complications due to cancer in a hospital room at the Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina.  The family of Bob Denver asks that fans do not send flowers and gifts, but instead to donate to Bob’s charity, The Denver Foundation whose purpose is to help handicapped people in his home state of West Virginia. You can make donations to The Denver Foundation, Inc., PO Box 931, Princeton, WV 24740.  The remaining members of the original castaways are the Professor Roy Hinkley (Russell Johnson), Mary Ann Summers (Dawn Wells) and Ginger Grant (Tina Louise).

Biography by Ian Ripley, PopStarsPlus.com, Sr. Staff Writer

 

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NEWS

News Resources

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WEBSITES

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Bob Denver Official Website: BobDenver.com

Fan Sites:

Rating: Highest = 4 J's

Celebrity & Commercial Sites:

Rating: Highest = 4 J's

JJ ½ Bob Denver – The Fan Site

JJ ½ GilligansIsle.com

JJJ½ IMDB.com

JJJ MSN.com

JJ ¾ Yahoo.com

JJ ½ www.PopStarsPlus.com

J ¾ FiftiesWeb.com

J ¾ NNDB.com

J ¾ TV.com

J ½ Answers.com

J ½ BobDenver.com

J ½ NYTimes.com

J ½ RottenTomatoes.com

J ½ StarPulse.com

J ½ TriviaTribute.com

J ½ TV-Now.com

J ¼ CelebrityStorm.com

J ¼ Who2.com

J ¼ Wikipedia.org

J Filmbug.com

¾ Avelyman.com

¾ ClassicTVHits.com

¾ EW.com

Articles and Interviews

• 20 Questions: Bob Denver (Howart Altman: CityPaper.net: Jan. 4-11, 1996)

• An Interview With Bob Denver (Debi Jenkins: About.com: July 22, 1999)

• Bob Denver Interview – Transcript (CJAD 800 AM: PeterAnthonyHolder.com: Jan. 6, 1994)

• Bob Denver Will Broadcast from His House (Enquirer.com: Mar. 10, 2004)

• TV’s Gilligan Dead (Joal Ryan: Eonline.com: Sept. 6, 2005)

Bob Denver Pictures (pics, photos, photographs, images, gallery, etc.)

AahCelebs.com

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Multimedia (Downloads, Wallpaper, Videos, Screen Savers, etc.)

Artist4Hire.net

Quotations

BrainyQuote.com

ThinkExist.com

Song Lyrics

Not available.

Links Pages

Celebrity-Link.com

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Related Websites

Gilligan’s Island Pilot

DISCOGRAPHY: ALBUMS, SINGLES, COMPILATIONS, BOXED SETS, ETC.

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ON VIDEO, A FILMOGRAPHY

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BOOKS & MAGAZINES

POSTERS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

PRODUCTS & OTHER ITEMS

"Ballad of Gilligan's Island" [Revised*]

by Sherwood Schwartz and George Wyle (TV vocals by the Wellingtons)

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started from this tropic port,
Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day,
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless crew,
The Minnow would be lost, the minnow would be lost.

The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle,
With Gilligan, The Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife,
The movie star, the professor and Mary Ann,
Here on Gilligan's Isle.

[* The song was revised after the first season to include “the professor and Mary Ann.” It originally stated “and the rest,” but Denver fought for them to get equal billing and their characters were added to the song.]

AUCTION ITEMS