Dawn Wells

Dawn started out as a chemistry major, later leaning toward theater training, as a student at the all-girl school, Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. When she graduated, her first role was in a play portraying a fourteen-year-old boy.

Dawn was the cast member who received the most fan mail during the 1964-67 broadcasting of the CBS television sitcom, Gilligan's Island.

Dawn was arrested for possession of marijuana and sentenced to six months probation, after being pulled over while driving erratically in her car on October 17, 2007. Her lawyer produced witnesses that she was not intoxicated or otherwise under the influence when she left a surprise birthday party earleir that day and that a friend of hers did leave the marijuana in the car after borrowing it without her knowledge. Her driving was attributed to her trying to find the heating controls in the car, a new one with which she had no familiarity.

Dawn attended Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz's award ceremony where he received a Television star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, along with Brady Bunch star Florence Henderson on March 7, 2008.

During an interview on Dave White's Talking Television, Dawn Wells recounted a moment connected with the tv-movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island that she said she would never forget. On the day that the weak and ailing Jim Backus came in to shoot the one scene that his failing health would allow, he gave a wonderful performance. Then after the scene ended he turned to Wells and asked her "Was I funny?" She reassured him that he was indeed funny, and it broke her heart to realize how far gone he was at that point that he couldn't judge his own work.

Dawn has appeared in Western Union commercials as her Mary Ann character.

Dawn is 5 feet 6 1/2 inches tall.

Dawn was the 1959 Miss Nevada and participated in the 1960 Miss America pageant.

Dawn was married to agent Larry Rosen (1964-1967).

Dawn and her "Gilligan" co-star Russell Johnson presided over the launch of the new Marina and Landing at Station Square, in Pittsburgh, PA, on August 4, 2005.

Dawn was Grand Marshal of the Sparks Hometowne Market Christmas parade in Sparks, NV in 2005.

Dawn owns and rents property in Florida and Nevada.

Dawn is a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority.

Measurements: 35-23-34 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Dawn is President of an annual independent film and music festival in Idaho, called "SpudFest."

Dawn has been in over 60 theatrical productions.

Dawn is on the Advisory Board of Women in Film And Video.

Dawn has traveled the world extensively. She has flown around the world in the Concorde, been on four safaris, climbed mountains in Rwanda to view mountain gorillas, and canoed in the Solomon Islands where women had never been before.

Dawn is a member of the Missouri Children's Hospital Advisory Board.

Dawn designed and sells clothes for ease of dressing for elderly citizens, in the "Wishing Wells Collection."

Dawn is president of the Idaho Film And Television Institute.

Dawn's great-great grandfather was a stagecoach driver during the 1849 gold rush.

Dawn appeared in the 1997 music video for the song "Mary Ann" by the group Squirtgun.

(2005) Dawn auctioned her costume for Mary Ann Summers, the original gingham blouse and shorts ensemble, for $20,700.

Dawn made fun of her Mary Ann character in commercials for 1-800-COLLECT during the 1990s.

She has her own skin care line, "Classic Beauty."

She founded the Dawn Wells' Film Actors Boot Camp for aspiring actors in Druggs, Idaho, in 1998.

She wanted to be a ballerina but was prevented by bad knees.

Dawn hosted the CBS special "TV's All-Time Favorites" in May, 1995.

Dawn Wells made her movie debut in the Columbia Pictures movie The New Interns (1964).

Dawn Wells is the author of the Book "Mary Ann's 'Gilligan's Island' Cookbook."