Wells was also a former Miss. Nevada.
Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann Summers on the classic TV show “Gilligan’s Island”, died of COVID-19, ABC News confirmed. She was 82 years old.
Her representative noted in a statement that the actress, motivational speaker and philanthropist “passed peacefully [Wednesday] morning without pain due to complications caused by Covid. “
TV fans will remember Wells as the shipwrecked counterpart to the “girl next door” to Marilyn Monroe’s Tina Louise clone movie star Ginger Grant in Gilligan’s Island, which spanned three seasons, from 1964 to 1967 , on CBS.
Louise is now the last surviving member of the cast of the beloved series. All the other stars – Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Russel Johnson and narrator Charles Maxwell – have all died.
Wells, a former Miss Nevada, made many appearances on stage and on screen after her contest days, but it was her stint in the famous popular comedy – which saw seven castaways stranded on a desert island after a three-hour boat ride that went wrong – it consolidated its pop culture status.
In fact, Wells’s representative noted in a statement: “Dawn’s striped cotton dress and the famous navel covering the shorts worn on ‘Gilligan’s Island’ are currently on display in the lobby of the Hollywood Museum.”
Wells remained close to the character and his legacy. A constant in signing autographs at pop culture conventions, she published a self-help book in 2014 called “What Would Mary Ann Do? A Guide to Life”.
In it, she noted, “It’s not my ego speaking, but Mary Ann was not just a silly, sweet naive. She was brilliant, fair and reasonable. Sherwood Schwartz, the show’s producer and creator, was smart enough to put her in short shorts so you wouldn’t think of her as your bossy sister. “