CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It’s been 60 years since the seven castaways from the hit TV show Gilligan’s Island were marooned on an uncharted island after a three hour tour. Dreama Denver, widow of the late Bob Denver who played Gilligan, thought it was worth a commemoration in honor of those castaways and longtime fans of the show.
“I felt that had to be commemorated in some way. All of the castaways are gone except for Tina (Louise– who played Ginger) and I didn’t think she would commemorate it, so I decided I should put something together,” said Dreama in an interview on Friday’s West Virginia Morning News on MetroNews.
Dreama had already published four books and approached her publishers about cobbling together a history of her late husband’s acting career and various mementos collected along the way. The result was her fifth book “Island to Icon, the Many Lives of Bob Denver.”
“It’s really like a photo journey through Bob’s career, everything he ever did. The movies, the TV series–he had five TV series, all the guest starring parts he ever did. It was just wonderful,” she said as she recalled organizing all of the various pieces for the publication.
The book has some written history and stories of each role Denver played whether large or small. There are pictures of Bob and Dreama with various Hollywood A-Listers from their day. It was a cathartic journey for Dreama and one that proved she had a lot more than she realized.
“I was going through a box that belonged to Bob’s mother that we had never looked through. I see a little stack of cards and I was going through those and there was a Christmas, Happy Holidays post card from Elvis and the Colonel,” she laughed. “Thirty-five years that was in my possession and I never knew it.”
Dreama makes her home in Princeton, W.Va. these days and will be in Charleston this weekend promoting her book at the West Virginia Book Festival at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
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