Gardner McKay

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Novelist-playwright and former actor Gardner McKay, star of the 1960s TV series “Adventures in Paradise,” died at his Honolulu home on Wednesday Nov. 21. He was 69 and had been fighting prostate cancer.

Originally intending to be a sculptor, the Manhattan-born and New York/Paris-raised McKay was offered modeling work and later was discovered by Dominick Dunne in a Hollywood coffee shop when Dunne was co-producing “Adventures in Paradise.” McKay played Adam Troy, dashing skipper of the schooner Tiki in the South Pacific.

When “Adventures in Paradise” ended after nearly three years, McKay didn’t renew his 20th Century Fox contract, turned down a chance to star with Marilyn Monroe in a film, and instead became an agronomist’s assistant in the Amazon rain forest. After that and time spent in France and Egypt, McKay returned to the United States and wrote numerous plays, including “Sea Marks,” several novels, such as “Toyer,” and many short stories. He also served as drama critic for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner from 1977 to 1982.

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He is survived by wife Madeleine, a son and daughter, a granddaughter and a brother.

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