Dawn Wells

Mary Ann has gone into retail. She is recognized as one of the "Gilligan's Island" castaways, the sweet, down-to-earth brunette matched against the sultry Ginger. But now Dawn Wells wants to make another statement. This one is for the sick and elderly. Three years ago, Wells, who played Mary Ann on the eternally popular TV show, established a new clothing line for the sick and elderly--the Wishing Wells Collections in Toluca Lake.

Sherwood Schwartz, the comedy writer and producer who created "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch," which have remained two of the most enduringly popular TV series in worldwide syndication, died Tuesday morning. He was 94. Schwartz, who began his more than six-decade career by writing gags for Bob Hope's radio show in 1939, died of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his son Lloyd. Schwartz once said he created "Gilligan's Island," which aired on CBS from 1964 to 1967, as an escape from his seven years on "The Red Skelton Show," for which he served as head writer and won an Emmy in 1961.

Dawn Wells, known to most as Mary Ann, is no Professor, but she can find her way through an online three-hour tour. To the eternal question--Ginger or Mary Ann?--there is now at least a partial answer. Mary Ann has a Web site. Actress Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on one of television's most famous sitcoms, "Gilligan's Island," uses her island on the Internet (http://www.dawn-wells.

Dawn Wells, known to most as Mary Ann, is no Professor, but she can find her way through an online three-hour tour. To the eternal question--Ginger or Mary Ann?--there is now at least a partial answer. Mary Ann has a Web site. Actress Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on one of television's most famous sitcoms, "Gilligan's Island," uses her island on the Internet (http://www.dawn-wells.

Sherwood Schwartz, the comedy writer and producer who created "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch," which have remained two of the most enduringly popular TV series in worldwide syndication, died Tuesday morning. He was 94. Schwartz, who began his more than six-decade career by writing gags for Bob Hope's radio show in 1939, died of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his son Lloyd. Schwartz once said he created "Gilligan's Island," which aired on CBS from 1964 to 1967, as an escape from his seven years on "The Red Skelton Show," for which he served as head writer and won an Emmy in 1961.

"They've paved over a lot of memories, as far as I'm concerned," Dawn Wells says. Hers and a lot of other people's. CBS Studio Center recently filled in and laid asphalt over the lagoon area where Wells gained fame in the cast of "Gilligan's Island." Located in Studio City, and currently home to "Seinfeld," "Cybill" and "Roseanne," CBS Studio Center is expanding its production facilities with seven new sound stages. Covering the lagoon made way for additional employee parking spaces.

Tickets are on sale for both the 93rd annual Huntington Beach Fourth of July Parade, billed as the largest west of the Mississippi, and for the fireworks show that will follow. Reserved bleacher seats to watch the parade from the grandstand at Main Street and Palm Avenue are $8 each.

The Scene: Around the pool at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel Thursday night, where the cast of "Sarafina!" mingled with guests after the show's opening at the James A. Doolittle Theatre on Vine Street. The sky was threatening, but sprinkles held off until guests collected their cars and were on their way home. The South African musical, a major hit in New York, is installed at the Doolittle until the end of September.

Writer-director Mark Rothman has his roots in the half-hour sitcom, and a television sensibility prevails in "Who Wants Fame?," a half-baked relationship comedy about an aging actress and a curmudgeonly talent coordinator who meet cute, cheat cute and stay together cute, sans laugh track--or emotional motivation.

Mary Ann has gone into retail. She is recognized as one of the "Gilligan's Island" castaways, the sweet, down-to-earth brunette matched against the sultry Ginger. But now Dawn Wells wants to make another statement. This one is for the sick and elderly. Three years ago, Wells, who played Mary Ann on the eternally popular TV show, established a new clothing line for the sick and elderly--the Wishing Wells Collections in Toluca Lake.

It was only last Monday that PBS presented a new production of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." Just six nights later, CBS gives us "Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three-Hour Tour in History." Ain't TV great? As exercises in nostalgia go, "Surviving Gilligan's Island" (9 p.m. Sunday, CBS) is at least inventive.

Latin pop is the music industry's hot ticket these days, but here's proof that the umbrella term is a slippery one to define: Tom Ze, a founder of Brazil's tropicalia movement in the '60s, comes to the Conga Room as one of pop music's certified iconoclasts, bearing such sonic weapons as power drill and transistor radio and backed by the Chicago post-punk art-rock band Tortoise. * Tom Ze, the Conga Room, 5364 Wilshire Blvd., 8 and 10:30 p.m. $TK. (323) 938-1696.