Gilligan's Island Actor Alan Hale Jr. Almost Missed His Chance To Play The Skipper

Alan Hale Jr. secured his "Gilligan's Island" part by way of his hitchhiker's thumb, a last-minute flight, and a strong dose of luck. 

Around the time he first expressed an interest in playing The Skipper on "Gilligan's Island," Alan Hale Jr. had also accepted a part in a low-budget film shooting in Utah. It was on this movie's set — a remote location in the Mojave Desert – where Hale got a call from the "Gilligan's Island" casting team requesting his presence at the CBS studios. "It was kind of a difficulty as to how was I going to get there. There were no planes out of there, there were no rental cars or anything," Hale recalled in a 1988 interview on Fox's  "The Late Show." 

Motivated by his passion for the script, Hale embarked on a cross-country adventure that just barely got the actor to Los Angeles in time. "I went out on the highway with my thumb, and I hitchhiked out of St. George, got down to Las Vegas, flew from Las Vegas into CBS," Hale explained. In order to access the highway, Hale reportedly rode a horse down from the movie's set, demonstrating an aptitude for wilderness navigation that ironically foreshadowed his character's predicament on "Gilligan's Island."

After Alan Hale Jr.'s harrowing adventure successfully delivered him to the doors of CBS, he learned that his claim to The Skipper might have been stronger than he'd originally thought. "When I got in there ... Mr. Sherwood Schwartz, [the "Gilligan's Island"] creator ... said, 'Alan, in many ways, I have written this story for you,'" Hale revealed. "He said, 'If you'd like to be The Skipper, you are, but I would like to see you in contrast with some of the people that we're going to use.'" Hale's subsequent chemistry read ultimately helped the "Gilligan's Island" crew nail down specifics of the dynamic between The Skipper and Bob Denver's Gilligan, a relationship that charmed audiences of the eventually beloved sitcom well until its final season aired in 1967. 

According to Bob Denver himself, if Hale had indeed been detained from his screen test, "Gilligan's Island" would have been nearly unrecognizable. To Denver and to the viewers of "Gilligan's Island" around the world, Hale's presence as The Skipper fueled a significant portion of the show's unforgettable slapstick humor. 

 ”[Alan Hale Jr.] was a great guy and a great physical comic. ... He was so strong that I could run across the stage, and he could catch me like a feather,” Denver was quoted as saying in The New York Times obituary for Hale, following the actor's death in 1990. ”That's what made our comedy so great.”