If his time on the North Shore of Kauai walking the beach at Moloaa Bay was at all memorable as he shot the pilot and first episode of Gilligan’s Island 50 years ago, actor Russell David Johnson may have recalled
If his time on the North Shore of Kauai walking the beach at Moloaa Bay was at all memorable as he shot the pilot and first episode of Gilligan’s Island 50 years ago, actor Russell David Johnson may have recalled it as he passed on Thursday in Bainbridge Island, Wash. He was 89.
Johnson was best known for playing the Professor on the CBS Television sitcom from 1964 to 1967. Johnson and the rest of the crew of the S.S. Minnow, the boat that sunk in the sitcom stranding them together in paradise, traveled to the location site on the bay on Nov. 15, 1963.
The North Shore beach with its hilly dunes, green vegetation and most importantly, palm trees unlike those found on the Mainland, was an ideal setting for the survivors of the fictional shipwreck. Honolulu Harbor in Oahu and CBS studios in Burbank, Calif., were later used for the show’s film locations.
Johnson also appeared in episodes of The Twilight Zone, Lassie, Gunsmoke and The Outer Limits.
• Lisa Ann Capozzi, features and education reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or lcapozzi@thegardenisland.com.
