WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - American actor Gavin MacLeod, who played a wise-cracking news writer on the classic 1970s sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the hospitable cruise ship captain on The Love Boat, died on Saturday (May 29) aged 90.
His nephew, Mark See, confirmed his death to Variety magazine. No cause of death was given, it said, but MacLeod's health had declined in recent months.
The bald MacLeod often played villains on television before being cast in the acerbic comic role of Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which ran on CBS from 1970 to 1977 and was one of the most honoured shows of its decade, winning 29 Emmy Awards.
After The Mary Tyler Moore Show, MacLeod was signed for the starring role of Captain Merrill Stubing on ABC's The Love Boat, which ran for 10 seasons from 1977 to 1987.
The series, which featured guests stars in each episode as passengers looking for romance aboard a cruise ship, was not a favourite of critics - a New York Times reviewer once called it "a dreadful porridge" - but it was frequently amusing and popular with viewers.
"I remember TV critics saying, 'How could you do it?'" MacLeod told Entertainment Weekly in 1997, referring to his jump from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to The Love Boat.
"But I loved it. I said: 'This is going to take people away from the everyday burdens of life. It'll give them something to dream about.'"
MacLeod also had a regular role on the World War II situation comedy McHale's Navy from 1962 to 1964, but frequently played bad guys like a character named Big Chicken in the crime drama Hawaii Five-O (1968 to 1980).
He appeared in supporting roles in several prominent movies as well, including Kelly's Heroes (1970), with actors Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas, and Operation Petticoat (1959) with late actors Cary Grant and Tony Curtis.
MacLeod was born as Allan See on Feb 28, 1931, in Mount Kisco, New York. For his show business career, he changed his first name to Gavin because he liked it and his last name to MacLeod as a tribute to his college acting teacher.
"I was a young kid with a bald head so I only played pimps, perverts, woman beaters and child molesters," MacLeod told People magazine in 1978.
That changed forever after he was cast on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as a news writer for a fictional Minneapolis TV station, joining a talented cast that included Moore, Ed Asner, Ted Knight, Betty White, Valerie Harper and Cloris Leachman.
Some of his character's best moments came interacting with Knight's buffoonish anchorman Ted Baxter and with White's acidic and man-hungry "Happy Homemaker" Sue Ann Nivens, who rarely let an opportunity pass to comment on Slaughter's baldness.
On The Love Boat, he headed a cast that included Fred Grandy, who later served as a United States congressman, Bernie Kopell, Ted Lange, Lauren Tewes and Jill Whelan. As Captain Stubing, he wore a white captain's hat and white captain's outfit, often with unflattering white shorts.
The show was populated by a seemingly endless stream of guest stars, from some of the most forgettable performers of the time to some genuinely big names from Hollywood's past.
MacLeod battled alcoholism during his career and became a devout Christian, starring in the Christian-themed film The Secrets Of Jonathan Sperry in 2009.
He had four children from his first marriage to former Rockette Joan Rootvik, which ended in divorce, and three stepchildren from his second marriage to former dancer Patti Kendig.
