Denny Miller
Encyclopedia
Denny Scott Miller is an American
actor
, perhaps best known for his guest-starring roles on Gilligan's Island
and as Tarzan
in the late 1950s.
Miller was a basketball
star at UCLA
, where his father was a physical education
instructor. In his senior year, while working as a furniture mover to pay for school, he was discovered on Sunset Boulevard
by a Hollywood agent who signed him with MGM
. His screen test was directed by George Cukor
.
He became the first blond Tarzan in Tarzan, the Ape Man (1959
), a cheapie/quickie which lifted most of its footage from earlier Johnny Weissmuller
movies. He was recommended by someone else considered for the role, William Smith
. MGM had him under contract for 20 months; in that time, he worked eight weeks as Tarzan.
After that, he did guest spots on a number of television series, such as Northwest Passage
, a 1958-1959 adventure
program on NBC
co-starring Keith Larsen
and Buddy Ebsen
and on NBC's western series
, Overland Trail
, starring William Bendix
and Doug McClure
, and Laramie
, co-starring John Smith
and Robert Fuller
. He also appeared on Have Gun-Will Travel, starring Richard Boone. From 1961-1964, Miller was a regular on Wagon Train
in the role of the scout
, Duke Shannon. In 1965-1966, after Wagon Train was cancelled, he starred on NBC as the husband of Juliet Prowse in the sitcom
Mona McCluskey
. He also appeared on the western series Gunsmoke
as Lijah The Fugitive
Miller guest-starred on Gilligan's Island
in 1964 as lost surfer Duke Williams in the episode “Big Man on Little Stick”, in 1967 as a method actor
playing Tongo the Ape Man in the episode “Our Vines Have Tender Apes”, and in 1970 as "Moose" on "I Dream of Jeannie". He would also guest-star on another Sherwood Schwartz
production, The Brady Bunch
, in 1973 as Carol Brady's egomaniacal high-school boyfriend Tank Gates in the episode "Quarterback Sneak".
In 1968, Miller appeared as "Wyoming" Bill Kelso in the Peter Sellers
movie The Party
, which he remembers as the most fun part he ever did. He appeared in the Battlestar Galactica
episode "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero" and the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
episode "The Dorian Secret". He also appeared as John Hays on "Hawaii Five-O
" in the episode "Pray Love Remember, Pray Love Remember" in 1968. His character was a college boyfriend wrongly accused of murder.
Miller later appeared as an alien invader in the television miniseries V. All together, he starred in over 200 episodic television series. He played the Gorton's Fisherman
in his yellow rain gear on TV commercials for 14 years.
Denny Miller wrote an autobiography titled "Didn't You Used To Be...What's His Name?" and a book about the obesity
problem in the United States called "Toxic Waist?...Get To Know Sweat!". USA Book News selected this last book as a Finalist in the Health Category for "Best Books 2006".
Miller now lives with his wife, Nancy, in Las Vegas
, Nevada
, and teaches classes in relaxation.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, perhaps best known for his guest-starring roles on Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island is an American television series created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for...
and as Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
in the late 1950s.
Miller was a basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
star at UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, where his father was a physical education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
instructor. In his senior year, while working as a furniture mover to pay for school, he was discovered on Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
by a Hollywood agent who signed him with MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
. His screen test was directed by George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
.
He became the first blond Tarzan in Tarzan, the Ape Man (1959
1959 in film
The year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters....
), a cheapie/quickie which lifted most of its footage from earlier Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller was an Austro-Hungarian-born American swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in movies. Weissmuller was one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven...
movies. He was recommended by someone else considered for the role, William Smith
William Smith (actor)
William Smith is an American actor who has appeared in almost 300 feature films and television productions.Smith began his acting career at the age of 8 in 1942...
. MGM had him under contract for 20 months; in that time, he worked eight weeks as Tarzan.
After that, he did guest spots on a number of television series, such as Northwest Passage
Northwest Passage (TV series)
Northwest Passage is a 26-episode half-hour adventure television series produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer about Major Robert Rogers during the time of the French and Indian War . The show derived its title and the main characters Rogers, Towne, and Marriner from the 1937 novel of the same name by...
, a 1958-1959 adventure
Adventure (genre)
The adventure genre, in the context of a narrative, is typically applied to works in which the protagonist or other major characters are consistently placed in dangerous situations...
program on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
co-starring Keith Larsen
Keith Larsen
Keith Larsen was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer who starred in three short-lived television series between 1955 and 1961.-Background:...
and Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen was an American character actor and dancer. A performer for seven decades, he had starring roles as Jed Clampett in the long-running television series The Beverly Hillbillies and as the title character in the 1970s detective series Barnaby Jones, and played Barnaby Jones in the movie...
and on NBC's western series
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
, Overland Trail
Overland Trail (TV series)
Overland Trail is a short-lived American Western series which aired on NBC from February 7 to June 6, 1960. The series starred William Bendix and Doug McClure,-Synopsis:...
, starring William Bendix
William Bendix
William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...
and Doug McClure
Doug McClure
Douglas Osborne "Doug" McClure was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s...
, and Laramie
Laramie (TV series)
Laramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. Laramie was a Revue Studios production which originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy and Robert Crawford, Jr...
, co-starring John Smith
John Smith (actor)
John Smith was an American actor remembered in particular for two NBC western television series.-Early life and career:He was born Robert Errol Van Orden, in Los Angeles, California...
and Robert Fuller
Robert Fuller
Robert Welch is a professional wrestler and manager better known by his ring names Robert Fuller and Col. Robert Parker. Robert and his brother Ron co-owned Continental Championship Wrestling for a time.-Career:...
. He also appeared on Have Gun-Will Travel, starring Richard Boone. From 1961-1964, Miller was a regular on Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...
in the role of the scout
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
, Duke Shannon. In 1965-1966, after Wagon Train was cancelled, he starred on NBC as the husband of Juliet Prowse in the sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
Mona McCluskey
Mona McCluskey
Mona McCluskey is an American sitcom that aired on NBC as part of its 1965-1966 schedule. The series stars Juliet Prowse in the title role, and aired from September 16, 1965 to April 14, 1966.-Synopsis:...
. He also appeared on the western series Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
as Lijah The Fugitive
The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
Miller guest-starred on Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island is an American television series created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for...
in 1964 as lost surfer Duke Williams in the episode “Big Man on Little Stick”, in 1967 as a method actor
Method acting
Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...
playing Tongo the Ape Man in the episode “Our Vines Have Tender Apes”, and in 1970 as "Moose" on "I Dream of Jeannie". He would also guest-star on another Sherwood Schwartz
Sherwood Schwartz
Sherwood Charles Schwartz was an American television producer. He worked on radio shows in the 1940s, and created the television series Gilligan's Island on CBS and The Brady Bunch on ABC...
production, The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended family...
, in 1973 as Carol Brady's egomaniacal high-school boyfriend Tank Gates in the episode "Quarterback Sneak".
In 1968, Miller appeared as "Wyoming" Bill Kelso in the Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
movie The Party
The Party (film)
The Party is a 1968 comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, starring Peter Sellers and Claudine Longet. The film has a very loose structure, and essentially serves as a series of set pieces for Sellers's improvisational comedy talents...
, which he remembers as the most fun part he ever did. He appeared in the Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...
episode "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero" and the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired....
episode "The Dorian Secret". He also appeared as John Hays on "Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for twelve seasons from 1968 to 1980, and continues in reruns. The show featured a fictional state police unit run by Detective Steve McGarrett,...
" in the episode "Pray Love Remember, Pray Love Remember" in 1968. His character was a college boyfriend wrongly accused of murder.
Miller later appeared as an alien invader in the television miniseries V. All together, he starred in over 200 episodic television series. He played the Gorton's Fisherman
Gorton's of Gloucester
Gorton’s of Gloucester is a subsidiary of the Japanese seafood conglomerate Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd., producing fishsticks and other frozen seafood for the retail market in the United States. Gorton’s also has a North American foodservice business which sells to fast-food restaurants such as...
in his yellow rain gear on TV commercials for 14 years.
Denny Miller wrote an autobiography titled "Didn't You Used To Be...What's His Name?" and a book about the obesity
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
problem in the United States called "Toxic Waist?...Get To Know Sweat!". USA Book News selected this last book as a Finalist in the Health Category for "Best Books 2006".
Miller now lives with his wife, Nancy, in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, and teaches classes in relaxation.
See also
- Johnny WeissmullerJohnny WeissmullerJohnny Weissmuller was an Austro-Hungarian-born American swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in movies. Weissmuller was one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven...
- TarzanTarzanTarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
- Mike Henry
- Buster CrabbeBuster CrabbeClarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe was an American athlete and actor, who starred in a number of popular serials in the 1930s and 1940s.-Birth:...
- Lex BarkerLex BarkerLex Barker was an American actor best known for playing Tarzan of the Apes and leading characters from Karl May's novels.-Early life:...
- Ron Ely