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Bob Denver said money was ''hard come, easy go''
The Gilligan star had a spacious West Coast hideaway.
If there's one thing more fun than watching stars on TV, it's finding out exactly how they spent their paycheck. It's a type of fantasy wish fulfillment: Lots of us will never live like the mega-wealthy, but it sure is nice to pretend. So, we live vicariously through the exploits of Hollywood stars, just as we live through their characters' lives on TV. We'll probably never be stuck on an island, so it's fun to imagine what that would be like as well!
Bob Denver's was a very specific kind of success. He was famous as Maynard G. Krebs, and then very famous as Gilligan, and then... not much else. He didn't use his television stardom to pursue a movie career. He didn't pivot into politics. He didn't decide to direct. He would occasionally re-appear in media as Gilligan, but that was about it. But when he spoke with The Gastonia Gazette in 1966, he was riding high as everybody's favorite red-shirted castaway.
Denver specifically spoke about a weekend trip to Hawaii. No, not the entire weekend. He woke up Saturday morning, took his wife to Hawaii, and then came back on Sunday. The stars... They're just like us.
He'd just finished buying a new house overlooking Topanga Canyon, not far from Malibu. While no house in Los Angeles is cheap, the house's price was nothing compared to the cost of re-doing the whole thing.
"We should have waited," said the man that was Gilligan. "But we didn't want to. So we didn't."
The house sat on a two-acre oak grove and was just a 35-minute drive away from the Studio City lot where Gilligan's Island was shot. Denver could make his commute in a little over an hour, roundtrip. However, despite its proximity to the hustle and bustle of LA productions, the house was remote enough to serve as a sanctuary.
"I can walk up above my house," said Denver, "and look down into Santa Ynez Canyon and there's nothing and nobody — just a bunch of hawks flying around."
That level of isolation comes at a steep price in Southern California, though, even for one of television's brightest stars.
"With me," said Denver, "[money] isn't easy come, easy go. It's hard come, easy go. My business manager has given up on me. He knows I'm hopeless."
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17 Comments
But back then I think weed was a lot more $$$:)
