Gilligan's Professor Dies at 89

He may have spent much of the series' run being lumped in with "the rest" of the cast of "Gilligan's Island," but no one would argue that the Professor wasn't an extremely important part of the island-bound group. Russell Johnson, the actor who portrayed the brainy cast-away, died this week at the age of 89.

Johnson appeared in all but one of the series' episodes between 1964 and 1967, and he reprised the role of the Professor in three "Gilligan's Island" TV movies between 1978 and 1981. The Professor was TV's original MacGyver; his improvised contraptions, most of them made entirely from coconut, bamboo and vines, kept the cast-aways alive for years until they finally made it off the island. He was trained as a botanist, but he was an academic Renaissance man, with expertise in just about every scientific field imaginable.

Johnson died of kidney failure at his home on Thursday. He was the last surviving member of the show's regular male cast. Bob Denver (Gilligan) died in 2005, Alan Hale Jr. (The Skipper) died in 1990, and Jim Backus (Thurston Howell III) died in 1989. Of the three regular female cast members, Tina Louise (Ginger Grant) and Dawn Wells (Mary Ann) survive. Natalie Schafer ("Lovey" Howell) died in 1991.