Russell Johnson

Russell Johnson was an actor best known for the popular television comedy Gilligan's Island. On the show, which aired from 1964 to 1967, Johnson played the Professor, one of seven castaways stranded on an uncharted tropical island after a storm left them shipwrecked.

Born in Pennsyvania in 1924, Johnson served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and received the Purple Heart after his aircraft was shot down in the Phillippines in 1945. After the war he used the G.I. Bill to study at the Actors' Laboratory in Los Angeles.

He began his career in the early 1950s with small roles in such feature films as For Men Only, It Came from Outer Space and This Island Earth, and television series such as Fireside Theatre and Adventures of Superman. Before Gilligan's island, he had guest roles in numerous series, often cast as a villain in western dramas such as Rawhide and Wagon Train. Other appearances during those years included Climax!, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Riverboat, Ben Casey, Hawaiian Eye, 77 Sunset Strip and many others. He also starred in the short-lived western Black Saddle.

After Gilligan's Island ended its run, he continued to work in television, and had parts in such shows as Gunsmoke, The Big Valley,  That Girl, The FBI, Marcus Welby, M.D., Mannix, Cannon, McMillan and Wife, Lou Grant, The Jeffersons, Dallas, Dynasty, Bosom Buddies and Roseanne.

Johnson died on January 16, 2014, in Bainbridge Island, Washington. He was 89.