Shadow Lawn Press

For several generations of television fans, Dwayne Hickman will forever be Dobie Gillis, one of TV's most engaging teenagers. Who can ever forget him philosophizing in front of Rodin's Thinker, chasing Tuesday Weld, avoiding the advances of Zelda Gilroy, or clowning with Maynard G. Krebs, TV's favorite beatnik?

For millions of baby boomers who came of age in the early sixties, Dobie Gillis represented the ultimate teenager: confused about his future, crazy about girls, and faithful to a fault to his hapless sidekick.

Although most identified with the character of Dobie Gillis, there is much, much more to Dwayne Hickman. His unique and varied career provides a fascinating look at more than fifty years of show business history. In Forever Dobie, Dwayne Hickman recounts:

• His life as a reluctant child actor during the Golden Age of Hollywood, when he worked with screen legends Claudette Colbert, John Wayne, and Frank Sinatra, dated Gary Cooper's daughter, and had repeated encounters with the secretive Howard Hughes.
• His years on Love That Bob during television's own Golden Age, where he learned comedy from such masters as Jack Benny, George Burns, and Bob Cummings.
• A rude initiation into rock 'n 'roll, when his publicists tried to turn him into a teen singing sensation with hilariously bad results.
• A post-Dobie movie career that ranged from his appearance in the Oscar-winning Cat Ballou to a string of zany A.I.P. teen exploitation films, including Ski Party, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, opposite such talent as Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Sandra Dee, George Hamilton, and Vincent Price.
• Hickman's stint managing a Las Vegas resort, where he worked with country-and-western legends Jerry Lee Lewis, Tammy Wynette, and Roy Clark.

His return to television as a CBS executive assigned to the hit comedies Maude, M*A*S*H, and Designing Women and his experiences with producers and writers Norman Lear and Linda Bloodworth Thomason.