TV pioneer Sherwood Schwartz dies at 94
Hall of Fame inductee Sherwood Schwartz, right, and actress Florence Henderson pose together at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences 2008 Hall of Fame Ceremony in Beverly Hills, Calif. Schwartz, who created "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch" died July 12, 2011. (Dec. 9, 2008) Credit: AP
Sherwood Schwartz -- creator of two enduring TV landmarks, "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch" -- has died at 94. He was being treated for an intestinal infection at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he died early Tuesday, according to a great-niece, Robin Randall, who announced his death to The Associated Press.
With a career that began in the 1940s as a writer for Bob Hope and Red Skelton, Schwartz is best remembered for his two sitcoms. "Gilligan's Island," which aired from 1964-67, has been endlessly rerun from the moment it went off network television. "The Brady Bunch," which aired from 1969-74, begat movies, sequels and spinoffs that continue to bounce around the airwaves to this day. The shows' theme songs -- written or co-written by Schwartz -- are among the best known and loved in all of TV ("Gilligan's" "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale . . ." and "The Brady Bunch's" "Here's the story of a lovely lady . . .").
Neither show was a Nielsen hit, but they resonated for the Baby Boom generation -- and their children. Both shows were lighthearted comic fantasies, and sharp counterpoints to the tumultuous times during which they aired.
Nevertheless, Schwartz insisted that "Gilligan's" and its Utopian world had social meaning. In an interview with the AP, he once noted that "I knew that by assembling seven different people and forcing them to live together, the show would have great philosophical implications." As for "The Brady Bunch," he observed: "It dealt with real emotional problems -- the difficulty of being the middle girl; a boy being too short when he wants to be taller."
Schwartz was born in 1916 in Passaic, N.J., and grew up in Brooklyn. His brother, already working for Hope, got him a job when Sherwood was still in college. "Bob liked my jokes, used them on his show and got big laughs. Then he asked me to join his writing staff," Schwartz said during an appearance in March 2008, when he got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. "I was faced with a major decision -- writing comedy or starving to death while I cured those diseases. I made a quick career change."
Besides his wife, Mildred, Schwartz's survivors include sons Donald, Lloyd and Ross Schwartz, and daughter Hope Juber.
With AP
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