Dawn Wells who starred in the 1960s popular sitcom Gilligan’s Island and was the daughter of a casino owner in Las Vegas died in the previous week of Cobid-19 complications.
She died the last Wednesday at age eighty-two in a Los Angeles private nursing home. She was closely related to Nevada all across her life.
Wells took birth in Remo and joined Reno High School. Her father. Joe Wesley Wells was a famous real estate businessman who also co-owned the Las Vegas Thunderbird Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. The Drew Las Vegas is now at the location where the Thunderbolt once was located.
In 1959, Dawn Wells was awarded and crowned Miss Nevada. At the Atlantic City’s Miss America pageant, she had read Sophocles’ Antigone to finish her talent segment of that event, as sourced from the NY Times. She almost always downplayed the win as her being Miss Nevada.
Wells achieved her graduation cap from the University of Washington in 1960 in Seattle with a theatre art and design degree.
A Three-hour Tour
After joining and appearing in many television shows, Dawn received lasting popularity after playing the role of Mary Ann Summers on the show “Gilligan’s Island”. It was a light-hearted and funny CBS program which got premiered in 1967 and run in 1967.
Dawn played the role of a young woman who won in a radio contest for a foreign trip aboard a charter ship, the SS Minnow. As the theme song of the show tells, the trip was prospected to be an almost three-hour tour. However, the vessel turned into a shipwreck. The show was based on the misadventure of these seven castaways with various backgrounds estranged together on an Island.
Remembering Dawn, the NY times remarked that her persona was enough to make her a memorable person.