Dawn Wells

Dawn Elberta Wells ( born October 18, 1938 in Reno, Nevada) is an American actress.

In 1959 she was awarded the Miss Nevada and took the following year as a representative of their Federal State in the Miss America part. After her acting career began. First, she received supporting roles and guest appearances in various television series such as 77 Sunset Strip (1961 ), Maverick (1961) and Bonanza ( 1962/1968 ).

From 1964 to 1967, she then played the role of land ice Mary Ann Summers on the CBS sitcom Gilligan's Island, which was to shape their image long term. Since the series was repeated to this day countless times, Wells / Mary Ann became an icon of American popular culture. The classic question to find out the preferred type of woman American men, is Mary Ann or Ginger? . Ginger, played by Tina Louise Gilligan's Island was a glamorous but quite bitchy starlet, while Mary Ann represented the kind-hearted innocent country. Almost all relevant surveys Mary Ann is at the front.

In the following years she appeared in supporting roles, especially in television movies, including in the various productions successor to Gilligan's Island.

Wells now lives on a ranch in Driggs (Idaho ). It organizes acting workshops and runs a company that manufactures specialized clothing for physically disabled people. In 1990, after the death of Natalie Schafer, who had played in Gilligan's Island, the millionaire wife Lovey Howell, and with the wells in the series as in "real life " a kind of mother -daughter relationship used, rumors, Schafer got her considerable fortune Wells bequeathed. A confirmation of this assertion is made ​​, however.

Filmography

Award

• 2004: TV Land Award for Gilligan's Island ( shared with Bob Denver, Tina Louise, Sherwood Schwartz, Lloyd J. Schwartz and Russell Johnson)