‘Gilligan’s Island’ star Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann, dies of COVID at age 82

Dawn Wells, the beloved actress who portrayed girl-next-door Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island,” has died of coronavirus.

Wells, 82, died Wednesday in Los Angeles, according to her publicist, Harlan Boll.

He said there was “so much more to Dawn Wells” than her performance as the charming Mary Ann Summers, including her work as a teacher and motivational speaker.

Wells starred as Mary Ann throughout the three-season run of “Gilligan’s Island” from 1964 to 1967. The iconic CBS sitcom centers on an eclectic group stranded on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean after their charter boat becomes shipwrecked in a typhoon during a three-hour tour.

With Wells’ death, 86-year-old Tina Louise, who played Hollywood star Ginger Grant, is the last surviving cast member of the show.

“I was sad to learn of Dawn’s passing, I will always remember her kindness to me,” Louise said. “We shared in creating a cultural landmark that has continued to bring comfort and smiles to people during this difficult time. I hope that people will remember her the way that I do — always with a smile on her face.”

Another 1960s TV icon, “I Dream of Jeannie” star Barbara Eden, saluted her colleague and friend.

“Oh Dawn, it is never easy to hear that a happy, charming friend has passed,” Eden, 89, tweeted with a picture of the pair together. “You were always great fun and loved to laugh. Decades of laughter and good times together will remain with me always. Off the island, but forever in our hearts.”

Wells and Russell Johnson, who played the professor, originally didn’t get credited in the opening in the first season, and were referred to as “the rest” in the opening theme song. That was changed the next year, with screen credit and the song lyrics revised to “the professor and Mary Ann.”

Wells’ virtuous and easygoing character, who hailed from a farm in Kansas, served as a change of pace from others on “Gilligan’s Island,” particularly Ginger, an elegant star.

“Mary Ann was a good girl,” Wells told the magazine Smashing Interviews in a piece published last year. “She was polite. She was a hard worker. She would be your best friend. She cooked. She cleaned. She did all of those things, and she was a really good role model. But the first thing you want to do is break that character and go do something else.”

Before she broke into acting, the Reno-born Wells was crowned Miss Nevada and participated in the Miss America pageant in 1959.

Her earliest acting gigs included appearances on the TV series “Maverick,” “Cheyenne,” “Bonanza” and “Wagon Train.”

Wells also starred in the 1976 thriller “The Town That Dreaded Sundown” and the 1977 horror film “Return to Boggy Creek.” She reprised her role as the comely castaway in multiple “Gilligan’s Island” made-for-TV movies.