Gavin MacLeod, 'Love Boat' Captain, Dies At 90
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gavin McLeod, veteran supporting actor who rose to stardom as the sardonic TV news writer Murray Sloter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, before gaining even more fame as the cheerful Captain Stubbing on The Love Boat Ki died. He was 90 years old.
McLeod died early Saturday, his nephew Mark C told Variety. The trade publication reported that McLeod's health was poor recently but no cause of death was stated.
Known to sitcom fans for his bald head & wide smile, McLeod worked in anonymity for more than a decade before appearing in dozens of TV shows & numerous films before landing his role as Mary Tyler Moore in 1970 .
He originally tested for Moore's TV boss, Lou Grant, who went to Ed Asner. Realizing that he was not the right fit to play the brash, short-tempered TV newsroom leader, McLeod asked if he could try for the intelligent TV news writer instead, his jokes often being retarded anchorman Ted Baxter. Are at the cost of.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a smash from the start & remains a classic of situation comedy. It produced two spinoffs, Rhoda and Phyllis, starring Valerie Harper &Chloris Leachman, who portrayed Mary's neighbors.
Moore, who plays news producer Mary Richards, decided to end it after season seven, when it was still top-rated.
MacLeod turned to The Love Boat, a romantic comedy in which guest stars, from Gene Kelly to Janet Jackson, would embark on a cruise and fall in love with each other.
Although despised by critics, the series proved to be extremely popular, lasting 11 seasons & closing several TV films, with two McLeods remaining on top of the cruise ship. This resulted in him being hired as a TV pitchman for Princess Cruise Lines.
"The critics hated it. They called it goofy TV, but we became goodwill ambassadors," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2013.
His final TV credits include Ann Angel, touched by JAG & The King of Queens.
McLeod's light-hearted screen persona contrasted with his personal life. In his 2013 memoir, This Is Your Captain Speaking, McLeod admitted that he struggled with alcoholism in the 1960s and '70s. He also wrote that losing his hair at an early age made it difficult for him to find work as an actor.
"I went all over the city in search of an agent, but no one was interested in representing a bald-headed young man," he wrote. "I knew what I needed to do. I needed to buy a hairpiece for myself." A toupee changed his fortunes "very quickly". By middle age, he did not need a toupee.
McLeod, whose given name was Alan C., took his first name from a French film & his last name from a drama teacher at Ithaca College in New York, who had encouraged him to pursue an acting career.
After college, Mount Kisco, a New York native became a supporting player in A Hatful of Rain & other Broadway plays and in films such as I Want to Live! & Operation Petticoat.
He guest starred in TV shows in the 1960s, including Hogan's Hero, Hawaii Five-O & The Dick Van Dyke Show. He also appeared in McHale's Navy from 1962 to 1964 as Sailor Joseph "Happy" Haines.
He auditioned for a leading role: Archie Bunker in All in the Family. But he quickly realized that the character immortalized by Carol O'Connor was wrong for him. "Immediately I thought, 'This is not a script for me. The character is too big.' I can not say these things, ”McLeod wrote in his memoir.
Other film credits include Kelly's Heroes, The Sand Pebbles & The Sword of Ali Baba.
McLeod had four children with his 1st wife, Joan Rutwick, whom he divorced in 1972. He was the son of an alcoholic & his drinking problems helped Patti Steele get a second divorce. But after McLeod quit drinking, he & Steele remarried in 1985.
The couple later hosted a Christian radio show called Back on Course: A Ministry for Marriage.