A screen star who portrayed a character that generations of television viewers grew up watching has died.

Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann Summers on the TV sitcom Gilligan’s Island, died this morning (December 30) in Los Angeles due to COVID-19-related complications, according to her publicist. She was 82 years old.

Mary Ann, a sweet, girl-next-door farm girl from Kansas, was one of three female characters in a group of seven castaways marooned on a tropical island after a disastrous boat tour.

The down-to-earth, pig-tailed Mary Ann was a foil and friend of the glamorous Ginger Grant, a fictional, gown-garbed Hollywood starlet played by Tina Louise.

The 86-year-old Louise is the last surviving main cast member of Gilligan’s Island.

The series ran for three seasons, with 98 episodes from 1964 to 1967, and continued on in subsequent decades through syndication.