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Thurston Howell III
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Thurston Howell III (mentioned in the opening credits as: "The Millionaire") is a character on the CBS television sitcom Gilligan's Island, which ran from 1964 to 1967, and later in syndication.Howell, portrayed by veteran character actor Jim Backus, is so wealthy that he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and several changes of clothing with him for what was intended to be only a three-hour boat tour in Hawaii, one of the sillier premises of the show. Speaking with a Locust Valley lockjaw accent, Howell is a stereotypical member of the New England Yankee elite — a resident of Newport, Rhode Island, a graduate of Harvard University and a Republican. He is a member of the Union League Club where he has a "window seat." His wife, Lovey, portrayed by Natalie Schafer, is conscious of social strata, yet seems to be a good-hearted woman with a deep sense of noblesse oblige, allowing her to interact with the other passengers and crew, though they are all her social inferiors. One of the implied humorous points of the show is that Thurston continually fails to realize that all of the Howells' money is essentially useless to them on the island. On the other hand, the other castaways apparently tolerate the fact that he refuses to do any work. One exception is when an egocentric Hollywood producer (played by Phil Silvers) "visited" the island and the Howells had to wait on him as butler and maid in order to be rescued. One of the most unusual aspects of his character is that, even though he is married, he sleeps with a teddy bear that he calls "Teddy". The Howells, as was common practice on American sitcoms of the mid-1960s, slept in twin beds. Thurston Howell, III had a based character in the television sitcom "Dusty's Trail" which was also based on Gilligan's Island.
Howell was included on Forbes Magazine's 2006 list of the 15 richest fictional characters. Just how much money he had was never specified, but he was shown as owning several large corporations. When asked what happened to him during the Great Depression, his wife says that he was a billionaire, lost most of his money and "became just a millionaire." Among his assets were a diamond mine, a coconut plantation, a railroad, an oil well, and 40,000 acres (16,000 ha) in Colorado—which included all of downtown Denver—that he bequeathed to his fellow castaways in his will. He also owned the Hatchet-Cuckoo Oil Company in Dust Bowl, Oklahoma. He tried to shove this supposedly worthless oil company on Gilligan. When he hears that an imposter is going to sell off his companies for cash, he is so enraged that he tries to swim back to the mainland three times, intent on killing the man, only to be stopped by Gilligan, the Skipper and his wife. In the last of three spin-off movies of the original series (The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island) Backus only made a cameo appearance due to illness.
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Filmography of Thurston Howell III (2 films)
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, 1h30Directed by Peter Baldwin, Peter Baldwin
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Adventure
Themes Seafaring films, Sports films, Transport films, Basketball films, Disaster films, Films about seafaring accidents or incidents
Actors Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Dawn Wells, Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, David Ruprecht
Rating42%
The former castaways own and operate a vacation resort on the formerly-deserted island, called "The Castaways", which was introduced in the previous film, The Castaways on Gilligan's Island. The Harlem Globetrotters, a traveling troupe of merry basketball players, are on a plane ride over the Pacific Ocean when it has engine trouble and they are forced into an emergency landing onto Gilligan's Island. After a brief time struggling in the jungle, they are discovered by Gilligan and Skipper and welcomed to "The Castaways." Meanwhile, J.J. Pierson, a corporate raider and the worst business rival of Thurston Howell III, has a plan to bamboozle the owners of The Castaways (Gilligan and his friends) into signing over ownership to him, as the island contains "supremium", an ore which provides large sources of energy. Eventually Gilligan and the Skipper uncover the conspiracy, with Pierson agreeing to tear up the fraudulent contracts if the Globetrotters play his team, the New Invincibles, which is a team of robot players. Notable sports broadcasters Chick Hearn and Stu Nahan appear as part of the basketball game scene, with Hearn calling the play-by-play action of the climactic showdown. The Globetrotters have no idea how to defeat a team of robots, until Gilligan unknowingly says they have not done any of their fancy tricks, causing the Professor to give a halftime pep talk to the Globetrotters that the New Invincibles would be caught off-guard. The Globetrotters start scoring against the New Invincibles, but when injuries sideline a couple of the players, Gilligan and Skipper must serve as substitute Globetrotters.
, 1h30Directed by Earl Bellamy
Origin USA
Genres Comedy
Themes Seafaring films, Transport films, Disaster films, Films about seafaring accidents or incidents
Actors Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Dawn Wells, Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Russell Johnson
Rating54%
The movie picks up directly after the end of Rescue from Gilligan's Island. The castaways are once again stranded on the same island that they had been on for so many years. The storm has contaminated all of the underground springs, and they are desperately searching for fresh water. Gilligan stumbles upon a couple of planes that are hidden in the jungle that they had somehow never noticed before during their fifteen years on the island. It is revealed that the island was a base of operations for the Army Air Corps during World War II, and the hangar was abandoned and overgrown by jungle brush. The tidal wave destroyed the foliage and exposed the hangar. The Professor believes that he can combine the two planes into one and fly them all back to civilization. He succeeds in cobbling together an airworthy plane and, dubbing it Minnow III, they head back. This occurs despite the fact that in two different episodes of the original series, it was established that the Professor cannot fly a plane.