Nancy McCarthy is best known for her role as "Bunny" in the original TV
pilot of "Gilligan's Island" and is also recognized from her many TV
appearances during the 1960s.
Nancy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and
graduated from Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University, with a
BFA in Drama in 1959. She is married and lives outside of California.
She first appeared in the TV series
"Surfside 6" and went on to appear in "Lock Up", "The Donna Reed Show",
"Adventures in Paradise" and "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". She also
had a recurring role on "My Three Sons". In 1963 actor Bob Denver
suggested her for his new series called "Gilligan's Island". She
appeared as Bunny, the blonde secretary on the original black and white
pilot episode entitled "Marooned." However, the creator and producer,
Sherwood Schwartz, after many network problems, decided to change three
of the characters and recast them.
She was also cast in a spin off pilot of "The Many Loves of Dobie
Gillis" called "Zelda" starring Sheila James, but the premise never got
it on the air. Another TV pilot, "The Peter Lorre Playhouse", where she
played a flapper ghost, was also not produced. McCarthy appeared in
several live TV plays produced in New York City including "Moment of
Fear" with Robert Redford, Macdonald Carey and Nina Foch on the "Alfred
Hitchcock Presents" series.
She made her New York stage debut in 1959 as Dixie Evans in Clifford
Odets' "The Big Knife" at the Seven Arts Playhouse which starred
Carroll O'Oconnor and was directed by Peter Bogdanovich. She played
Flirt in "Dark at the Top Of the Stairs" with Sylvia Sydney at the Cape
Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts and in Los Angeles she played the
role of Maggie, the Marilyn Monroe character in Arthur Miller's play
"After the Fall".
