Why Russell Johnson Came To Regret Playing The Professor On Gilligan's Island

Most actors are lucky to be remembered for one role once they've shuffled off this mortal coil, let alone a handful or more. Would you rather be consigned to dinner theater until you're too old to remember your lines, or would you prefer to have a few seasons in the sun as the main character on a ludicrous network sitcom that inexplicably turned into a syndication phenomenon?

The latter option should be a no-brainer, but some of the folks who found themselves stranded on "Gilligan's Island" spent most of their careers wishing they'd never taken that three-hour tour. Natalie Schafer was distraught before she even shot a single episode, weeping upon landing what a part that rescued her from small supporting turns in mostly unremarkable films. (For his part, Alan Hale, Jr. couldn't have been happier to have bossed around his little buddy Gilligan as the Skipper.)

As for Russell Johnson, who played the amiable Professor, he was of two minds. The World War II veteran, who survived getting shot down off the coast of the Philippines, knew well enough to be grateful for having been given the opportunity to make people giggle like goons on their couches. But if he had it to do all over again, he might've never set foot on the S.S. Minnow.

In a 1993 interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Johnson confessed that he regretted taking the part of the Professor. "Knowing what I know now," he said, "That it cost me roles long after the show went off the air, I think I would have gone in another direction."

Where Johnson was headed before washing up on "Gilligan's Island" is hard to say. He'd had one fairly prominent part in the 1955 sci-fi favorite "This Island Earth," but he was a bit too milquetoast to be a leading man, and projected too much kindness to work as a character actor in genre works. Regardless, he felt the Professor cost him dearly professionally. As he told the Post-Intelligencer:

"I was so connected with the character that they'd look at me, shake their heads and say, 'That's the Professor, the public won't believe him as anyone else,' and give the role to another guy,' he said. 'It was a difficult time, I was quite distressed at the way my career was — or wasn't — going.'"

Johnson did get to put in a full season as a sheriff on "Dallas" (albeit on the one that wound up being a dream, thus eliminating his character entirely from the timeline), so he fared better than some of the other castaways. Fortunately, he wound up relishing his role in pop cultural history. It beats playing "Two for the Seesaw" in front of a bunch of geriatrics gumming their rubber chicken.