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Tiki Central / General Tiki / The Beachcomber TV Series, 1962

Post #690519 by TikiTomD on Sun, Aug 18, 2013 9:17 AM

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Continuing from the prior post, this publicity photo of Cameron Mitchell posing near the exterior street set of “The Beachcomber” reveals something else I never knew... “The Beachcomber” TV series was filmed in Winter Park and Sanlando Springs, Florida!

A 1990 Orlando Sentinel letter to the editor elaborates a bit on the production filming...

The “Visual Ephemera” web site by Rich Kilby posted a great article about Sanlando Springs in May of 2009 here.

Chuck posted the following comment to that article on March 30, 2012...

“Family owned property at Sanlando Springs. I lived there from 1957-1967. Property was sold to developers. Gilligan’s Island was not filmed there, but the Beachcomber TV series was during those years. What a great place to grow up and meet all kinds of people like the Webb brothers, Wilbur Houston, Danny Hawkins, Jim Headley, Linda Gayle Westbrook, Terry Deitz, Jennifer Schumack. One of the highlights was the night "Ring of Fire" dive into the spring "boil". There I learned to bounce on a trampoline and was part of blanket tosses!”

Here’s an excerpt from an article titled “3 Fresh adventures: dip your toes in cool Florida water this summer” by Brett Fitzgerald, Larry Kinder and Tom Levine that appeared in the June 1, 2009 issue of Florida Sportsman...

“Reminds me of the swimmin' hole of my youth--Sanlando Springs (twixt Sanford and Orlando). It was a great spot, big swimming area surrounded by woods, the run flowed on down to the Wekiva River. Had nature trails, a nice beach, a diving board over the boil, a raft in the middle and a slide the likes of which you've never seen since. The slide was tree-canopy high with water jets squirting out at the very top. You got up so much speed that if you were lying down like you weren't supposed to be but most everybody was, you'd skip halfway across the spring like a flat rock skimmed by the Jolly Green Giant. Palm trees on the shore, grassy hills for picnicking under oaks, all for a small fee. They filmed the TV series "The Beachcomber" there as well as some Everglades series I can't quite recall. "Developer" bought it, put in townhouses and kicked out the public. The people who live there rarely use it.”

-Tom

[ Edited by: TikiTomD 2013-08-19 03:04 ]