Dawn Wells was legitimately a Very Good Person in real life and the world needs more of her type. She was born in Reno, Nevada, and in 1959 she was crowned Miss Nevada, which led to her competing in the 1960 Miss America Pageant. What else was she supposed to do but try her luck in Los Angeles.
She had bit parts and walk-ons in early ‘60s classics like “The Joey Bishop Show,” “77 Sunset Strip,” and “Maverick.” Then she was cast as Mary Ann Summers on “Gilligan’s Island” and her fate was sealed.
TV networks were very reluctant to take on “Gilligan’s Island” (it was considered too moronic for the age, and given that this was the early 1960s that’s saying something) but due to creator/producer Sherwood Schwartz’s indefatigable pestering and lobbying CBS made a pilot episode and the preview audience loved it.
I have a little “Gilligan’s Island” trivia: This is the original opening sequence, filmed in Honolulu in black and white. At about the one-minute mark you briefly see a lowered flag. That’s because the scene was filmed shortly after President Kennedy was shot in 1963.
“GI” was cancelled after only three seasons but if you grew up during the ‘70s you might have watched reruns after school and imagined it went on for decades. That’s because network TV shows used to film many more episodes than they do today, enough to fill a three-season schedule with a break for summer, when the networks would air summer replacement shows that they thought might become regularly scheduled programming. Aside from the pilot (which is rarely broadcast nowadays because there were many tweaks leading up to the series broadcast) there are 98 episodes. By contrast, my beloved “Downton Abbey” is comprised of only 52 episodes stretched out over 6 seasons/years, although every season there was an extended-length season opening and a Christmas special.
Wells went on to do appearances in all kinds of shows but never became a recurring character anywhere, let alone getting her own show. She of course embarked on “The Love Boat” and washed up on “Fantasy Island,” and also appeared on “ALF” and “Roseanne” and lots of other places. And then there were all the “Gilligan’s Island” sequels and remakes, etc., and Wells enthusiastically participated in all of them.
But, when she wasn’t doing all of this, she founded a company, Wishing Wells Collective, that made clothing for people with limited mobility, and it had (has?) a charitable aspect to it. She moved off to landlocked Idaho and
was the founder of the Idaho Film and Television Institute, a not-for-profit (501(c)(3)) educational organization with “a vision of education, technical training and economic development in Southeastern Idaho. She organized SpudFest, a regional annual family movie festival, and promoted Idaho Potatoes.
(Source: What do you think? Wikipedia)
She also became involved in The Denver Foundation, formed by co-star Bob Denver’s fourth wife Dreama (how’s that for a name?) after his death at age 70 from smoking-related thoracic cancer (apparently he smoked like a chimney.) In a totally douchey move, when Bob was collared once again in a pot bust in 1998 (he was 53) he initially claimed that Dawn Wells had sent him his pot delivery, but in later testimony surmised it must have been sent to him “by a deranged fan.” That is an odd way of characterizing your dealer: a deranged fan.
Anyway, I’ve nattered on long enough. In her later years Wells had dementia and was cruelly taken from us on December 30, 2020, at the age of 82, a COVID-19 victim.
The following two recipes come from Wells’s 1993 Gilligan’s Island Cookbook, issued to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the show’s debut. The first is very Trader Vic’s mid-century “Polynesian,” so…
Mary Ann’s Poo-Poo-Pee-Doo Dip
1 8oz. can pineapple tidbits
2 8oz. packages cream cheese, softened
1 8oz can water chestnuts, drained and chopped
3 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives
1 tsp seasoned salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup chopped pecans
fresh parsley
assorted crackers
Drain the pineapple, reserving 1 tablespoon of juice. In a small bowl, combine the pineapple, cream cheese, water chestnuts, chives, salt, pepper and pecans. Stir in the reserved juice, mixing well. Garnish with parsley, cover and chill. Serve with crackers.
Makes about 3 1/2 cups of dip
Um—perhaps not.
Mary Ann’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Casserole
8 Slices bacon, diced
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 Cup milk
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
dash garlic salt
3 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
4 ounces noodles, cooked
1 Cup grated cheddar cheese
In a skillet fry the bacon until crisp. Drain. In the skillet melt the butter and blend in the flour. Stir in the milk, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and garlic salt. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened. In a 2-quart casserole arrange half of the sliced eggs, noodles, cream sauce and bacon. Repeat the layers, ending with the bacon. Sprinkle the cheese over the casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Makes 6 to 8 servings
This I would try.
No coconut cream pie?
She had a recipe for one but that would have been too obvious. Plus the castaways ate so much of it I think I kind of overdosed on the idea of it growing up just watching the reruns. Thanks to the magic of 1960s TV no one ever questioned where the dairy would have come from, and as far as I can remember the island didn’t have herds of feral cows or anything.
Another piece of astonishing trivia is that many people believed that this was somehow a true story, like reality TV before the concept was invented. These concerned viewers flooded their Congressional representative with demands that the Navy conduct a search and rescue operation and bring them home. This is a true story, and the US government was forced to make some kind of formal response in the gentlest way possible reminding these rubes that it was only a TV show.
I grew up on Gilligan’s Island reruns after school.
1) I was more of a Ginger fan as kid, but as I grew up and realized I prefer the low maintenance Mary Ann over Ginger.
2) A decade ago, I stunned and “amazed” folks at how much TV I watched as a kid when I answered what the trivia host thought was the most obscure TV trivia question: “Who also starred in Gilligan’s Island Meets The Harlem Globetrotters?”
I won about 100 bucks in Bar certificates so I can’t complain.
3) I also wondered (like Red Forman) why didn’t they kill and eat Gilligan for costing them so many rescue attempts.
BTW, the correct answer was the then soon-to-be-divorced and refugees from Moonbase Alpha, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain which I think might have been the final straw for that Hollywood Couple (or at least you’d think they would have fired their agent.)
Have you ever seen the original TV show “Mission Impossible” from the 1960s? Martin Landau plays the crew’s master of disguise, and it’s laugh-out-loud funny because despite the (admittedly low budget) facial prosthetics and hair pieces, Landau always looks like Martin Landau, even when he’s playing someone impersonating someone, and simultaneously playing the person being impersonated. Barbara Bain was part of that crew too, but I forget what she was supposed to bring to the table.
Token Female and sex appeal.
So many of the dip recipes from that era feel like they just threw a bunch of slips of paper with names of ingredients in a hat and pulled out six or seven.
Those midcentury food conglomerate products weren’t going to sell themselves!
An important update to my original post: You see the lowered flag at about the :23 or :24 mark. When he saw the rushes Schwartz wanted to reshoot the footage but the network said no, it was good enough, because they were convinced the test pilot would fail anyway. It didn’t, and Schwartz got his chance for a redo once the series began filming in color.
I grew up on this show, too. I can sing the theme song from memory.
Lots of people can!
(I really should have saved this for the next DUAN mashup post.)
And just to beat a dead horse, of course (of course) there’s a Titanic parody:
I would positively feast on Mary Ann’s poo-poo-pee-doo dip.
In fact, I’m imagining it right now.
I think I’m more drawn to the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde casserole. A perfectly respectable casserole by day when out in public, but behind closed doors a wild beast.
Stupid name for a dip, but the ingredients totally look like something I would eat.
I loved that show. In the opening credits you can see my sister’s boyfriends sailboat as they set out from Ala Wai Yacht Harbor next to Magic Island. The cutaway at commercials is an island called Coconut Island and the way they shoot it is the only way you don’t see other land all around it. I always laugh at that when I see old reruns. Pretty much everything else was shot at a sound stage.