Some sitcom actors solely ever get one actually nice function, however Jim Backus had a number of. The actor, who performed rich Wall Road common Thurston Howell III on the favored castaway collection “Gilligan’s Island,” had already made a reputation for himself by the present’s premiere in 1964. He’d appeared frequently on the radio earlier than TV was the dominant media of the time, and voiced the practically blind cartoon character Mr. Magoo starting in 1949. Backus additionally performed a key function in Nicholas Ray’s 1955 teen film “Insurgent With out A Trigger,” portraying the daddy who falls brief when James Dean’s angsty antihero Jim Stark wants him.
A number of years earlier than “Gilligan’s Island,” Backus even acquired his personal present, aptly named “The Jim Backus Present” within the model of the time. Within the Backus-led collection, which was additionally referred to as “Sizzling Off the Wire,” the actor performed a person named Mike O’Toole, who was making an attempt to maintain his second-rate information wire enterprise afloat. The present, bought on to syndication, did not final lengthy. In keeping with David C. Tucker’s ebook “Misplaced Laughs of ’50 and ’60s Tv,” critiques for the collection weren’t nice. “We are saying Jim Backus deserves higher materials on a greater theme,” critic Bernice Ashby wrote on the time, in line with Tucker.
Whether or not or not corny “Gilligan’s Island” counts as “higher materials” is up for debate, however the desert island-set sitcom definitely made Backus extra well-known. After showing in all three seasons of the present, the actor reprised the function of Thurston Howell a number of occasions, together with within the TV motion pictures “The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island,” “Rescue From Gilligan’s Island,” and, in fact, “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island.” Different Thurston appearances got here within the oddball animated spinoff collection “Gilligan’s Planet” and one other cartoon present, “The New Adventures of Gilligan.”
After Gilligan’s Island, Backus acted, wrote books, and carried out comedy
Backus additionally visitor starred on a few of the most talked-about reveals of the time, from “I Dream of Jeannie” to “The Brady Bunch” to “Kolchak: The Night time Stalker” to “Gunsmoke” to Bugs Bunny cartoons (he performed the Genie). He even had a serious function within the short-lived “Blondie” TV present primarily based on Archie Comics, along with headlining the Mr. Magoo revival collection “What’s New, Mr. Magoo” within the late ’70s. Regardless of his frequent appearances on the small display, Backus appeared to have blended emotions about working in tv for a similar purpose many actors do right this moment: the intensive schedule. “Brokers like to put an actor in a collection, trigger you do not trouble them for 9 months,” Backus stated in 1969, per Tucker. “They throw you in in September and allow you to out in June. You reside in a vacuum and are available out asking who’s president.”
The actor did not simply do collection work; he additionally appeared in tons of TV motion pictures over time, in addition to some big-screen tasks like Stanley Kramer’s journey flick “It is A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” the cult favourite animation-live motion hybrid “Pete’s Dragon,” and the Pam Grier-led blaxploitation movie “Friday Foster.” He additionally had a fairly wide-ranging profession exterior of appearing. He wrote the TV film “Mooch,” carried out a track in “Rattling Yankees!” and launched a number of comedy and novelty albums (together with one referred to as “The Soiled Outdated Man,” which noticed a model of him wearing drag on the quilt). He wrote a handful of books as properly, together with two memoirs co-written along with his spouse Henny: “Forgive Us Our Digressions” and “What Are You Doing After the Orgy?” In keeping with the Stroll of Fame web site, Backus additionally beloved to golf, and took part in what was then referred to as the Bing Crosby pro-am match.
Later in life, Backus reunited with Natalie Schafer, who performed his spouse in “Gilligan’s Island,” to play their characters one final time for an Orville Redenbacher industrial. The pair slipped proper again into the haughty personas of the Howells as if there had been no time in between. Backus handed away in 1989 from pneumonia, having been recognized with Parkinson’s some years earlier, per his New York Occasions obituary. His voice may very well be heard posthumously in Looney Tunes cartoons launched after his demise, and “Gilligan’s Island” followers nonetheless see his most well-known legacy anytime they activate a rerun of the foolish, enduring throwback consolation watch.