This Gilligan’s Island Visitor Star Was Performed By This Legendary Western Actor

“Gilligan’s Island” boasted among the most prolific character actors of its period. Each The Skipper actor Alan Hale Jr. and The Professor actor Russell Johnson had appeared in nearly each high-profile collection of the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s by the point they have been solid in Sherwood Schwartz’s sitcom, together with visitor spots on “Rawhide” and “Gunsmoke.” However even these skilled performers could not match the expansive filmography of Strother Martin, who guested on “Gilligan’s Island” throughout its closing season. For a lot of, a spot on one of the widespread sitcoms of the period would have been a fairly large deal. For Martin, it was all in a day’s work.

By the point he arrived on “Gilligan’s Island,” Martin had amassed a powerful filmography that had seen him work with the greats of his age. He began out within the early Nineteen Fifties, and shortly landed roles in lots of the huge exhibits of the last decade. As you would possibly count on given the Oater’s reputation on the time, meaning Martin added a number of Western credit to his filmography. We’re speaking a number of “Gunsmoke” episodes, “Have Gun will Journey,” “Trackdown,” and even certainly one of the very best Western exhibits no person talks about anymore, “Dick Powell’s Zane Gray Theatre.” Like Hale Jr. and Johnson, Martin additionally appeared on “Rawhide,” taking part in a land surveyor alongside an early profession Clint Eastwood.

On the movie facet, Martin earned credit for 1958’s “Cowboy” and John Ford’s “The Horse Troopers,” and could possibly be seen in all the pieces from the movie noir traditional “Kiss Me Lethal” to the debut of Disney’s first cinematic universe in 1959 “The Shaggy Canine.” If he’d have stopped there, he would have retired with a greater filmography than most of his friends. However the Nineteen Sixties beckoned, as did the shores of Gilligan’s Isle.

Like the last decade prior, the Nineteen Sixties have been stuffed with highlights for Strother Martin, who would play maybe his finest recognized position because the jail captain in 1967’s “Cool Hand Luke.” That very same yr he visited the castaways in a a lot much less severe position when he appeared within the “Gilligan’s Island” Season 3 episode “Take a Dare.”

The actor performs George Barkley, a person who has sequestered himself on the island as a part of a recreation present that rewards individuals with money for placing themselves in robust conditions. In Barkley’s case, he marooned himself for per week in an effort to win $10,000. However the entire thing is thrown into jeopardy when he is found by the castaways. For them, Barkley represents one more probability of rescue. But when the sport present finds out he is not alone, he loses his cash. That prompts Barkley to do all he can to maintain the castaways a secret, together with stopping them from utilizing his two-way radio.

The entire episode involves a delightfully ridiculous shut when the castaways hatch a plan to maintain a lookout for the boat being despatched to gather Barkley, just for Gilligan to fail to report its arrival when the sport present sends a helicopter as an alternative. It is certainly one of the very best “Gilligan’s Island” episodes, with Martin making for an incredible visitor in what was one more high-profile visitor spot for the prolific character actor. After his look on the present, he remained busy, leaving the island and returning as soon as once more to the Previous West.

After “Gilligan’s Island” Alan Hale Jr. appeared in certainly one of Clint Eastwood’s most vital Westerns with 1968’s “Grasp ‘Em Excessive.” Russell Johnson returned to “Gunsmoke” for a pair episodes, and Bob Denver fronted the “Gilligan’s Island” Western knockoff “Dusty’s Path.” However none of them may match Strother Martin when it got here to post-“Gilligan’s Island” Western initiatives.

1969 gave us a number of motion pictures that outlined Western historical past, and Martin was in most of them. He performed a bounty hunter in Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch,” a mine boss in George Roy Hill’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child,” and a horse supplier in Henry Hathaway’s John Wayne-led “True Grit.” The latter wasn’t the primary time he’d appeared alongside Wayne, both. Martin acted reverse the Duke in 1963’s “McLintock!,” which debuted the identical yr “Gilligan’s Island” first aired on CBS. He additionally appeared in the movie IMDb charges as John Wayne’s finest Western, 1962’s “The Man who Shot Liberty Valance,” and in the end labored with the Western icon a complete of six occasions.

What’s extra, along with his look in “The Wild Bunch,” Martin continued a longstanding collaboration with Peckinpah, who wrote the 1956 “Gunsmoke” episode during which Martin first guest-starred, “Cooter.” Western roles simply saved coming after that, with Martin even displaying up in the offbeat Seventies Western “Nichols” earlier than happening to return to “Gunsmoke” by the use of “Bonanza” and “The Virginian.” The primary solid of “Gilligan’s Island” had its justifiable share of seasoned Western actors, however Martin really was a legend of Hollywood’s Previous West.