Some sitcom actors only ever get one really great role, but Jim Backus had several. The actor, who played wealthy Wall Street regular Thurston Howell III on the popular castaway series “Gilligan’s Island,” had already made a name for himself by the show’s premiere in 1964. He’d appeared regularly on the radio before TV was the dominant media of the time, and voiced the nearly blind cartoon character Mr. Magoo beginning in 1949. Backus also played a key role in Nicholas Ray’s 1955 teen movie “Rebel Without A Cause,” portraying the father who falls short when James Dean’s angsty antihero Jim Stark needs him.
A few years before “Gilligan’s Island,” Backus even got his own show, aptly named “The Jim Backus Show” in the style of the time. In the Backus-led series, which was also called “Hot Off the Wire,” the actor played a man named Mike O’Toole, who was attempting to keep his second-rate news wire business afloat. The show, sold directly to syndication, didn’t last long. According to David C. Tucker’s book “Lost Laughs of ’50 and ’60s Television,” reviews for the series weren’t great. “We say Jim Backus deserves better material on a better theme,” critic Bernice Ashby wrote at the time, according to Tucker.
Whether or not corny “Gilligan’s Island” counts as “better material” is up for debate, but the desert island-set sitcom certainly made Backus more famous. After appearing in all three seasons of the show, the actor reprised the role of Thurston Howell several times, including in the TV movies “The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island,” “Rescue From Gilligan’s Island,” and, of course, “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island.” Other Thurston appearances came in the oddball animated spinoff series “Gilligan’s Planet” and another cartoon show, “The New Adventures of Gilligan.”
After Gilligan’s Island, Backus acted, wrote books, and performed comedy
Backus also guest starred on some of the most talked-about shows of the time, from “I Dream of Jeannie” to “The Brady Bunch” to “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” to “Gunsmoke” to Bugs Bunny cartoons (he played the Genie). He even had a major role in the short-lived “Blondie” TV show based on Archie Comics, in addition to headlining the Mr. Magoo revival series “What’s New, Mr. Magoo” in the late ’70s. Despite his frequent appearances on the small screen, Backus seemed to have mixed feelings about working in television for the same reason many actors do today: the intensive schedule. “Agents love to put an actor in a series, cause you don’t bother them for nine months,” Backus said in 1969, per Tucker. “They throw you in in September and let you out in June. You live in a vacuum and come out asking who’s president.”
The actor didn’t just do series work; he also appeared in tons of TV movies over the years, as well as some big-screen projects like Stanley Kramer’s adventure flick “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” the cult favorite animation-live action hybrid “Pete’s Dragon,” and the Pam Grier-led blaxploitation film “Friday Foster.” He also had a pretty wide-ranging career outside of acting. He wrote the TV movie “Mooch,” performed a song in “Damn Yankees!” and released several comedy and novelty albums (including one called “The Dirty Old Man,” which saw a version of him dressed in drag on the cover). He wrote a handful of books as well, including two memoirs co-written with his wife Henny: “Forgive Us Our Digressions” and “What Are You Doing After the Orgy?” According to the Walk of Fame website, Backus also loved to golf, and participated in what was then called the Bing Crosby pro-am tournament.
Later in life, Backus reunited with Natalie Schafer, who played his wife in “Gilligan’s Island,” to play their characters one last time for an Orville Redenbacher commercial. The pair slipped right back into the haughty personas of the Howells as if there had been no time in between. Backus passed away in 1989 from pneumonia, having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s some years earlier, per his New York Times obituary. His voice could be heard posthumously in Looney Tunes cartoons released after his death, and “Gilligan’s Island” fans still see his most famous legacy anytime they turn on a rerun of the silly, enduring throwback comfort watch.
