Part 2: The Love Boat Years
On the way to being captain of The Love Boat (in real life, the Pacific Princess), Gavin MacLeod was flown to Mexico for his first rendezvous with the ship.
"They said we'd take my bags to the elevator," he remembers. "I said: 'Elevator?' I didn't even know there was an elevator on cruise ships."
That was his introduction to The Love Boat, a love affair that lasted a decade, once a week 
for 60 minutes on national TV. It was clearly also his introduction to cruising, an affair that continues today, but that's a story for another day — like tomorrow.
The Love Boat Years were 1977 to 1986. There were 186 episodes and he played Captain Merrill Stubing in all of them but two pilot shows, both done before he was recruited by the late producer, Aaron Spelling.
"He had made two pilots before that, and both captains had beautiful hair and Hollywood bodies — the antithesis of me!" says MacLeod. "Aaron said he was doing another pilot and wanted me to be the captain. I gave the script to my agent and he said: 'I think it sucks. Do you want to read it?' I said sure. I read it and thought 'Well, I could be the top guy this time, which is different than being the third guy [on the Mary Tyler Moore Show]. I read three scripts and they were terrific.
"There was nothing like it on TV. One was sophisticated, one was broad and the other — and this is the one that got me — made me tear up. It was about an old sick Jewish guy from New York who wanted to die, and the cemetery was full. So he went on The Love Boat, and he was going to die there. Then he met this lady, and they danced and talked 
and had a good time. Then he goes to his room. They were going to have dinner and when she didn't get an answer they opened his room, and he was dead. They were having such a beautiful time, and then he died. I cried…I cry at the drop of a hat."
When The Love Boat was sold to ABC, MacLeod was rehearsing for the musical Annie Get Your Gun, with Debbie Reynolds.
He remembers it like this:
"We're about to open in San Francisco, in about five days. I came home and I was ten feet off the ground. I couldn't wait to get back the next day. I'd waited a lifetime to do a musical like Annie Get Your Gun. In the opening scene, there are two big giants putting up a billboard and I'm the little guy in the center, Charlie Davenport."
Knowing that MacLeod liked to do different things, Spelling had told him they'd work around his schedule. When the show was ready for prime time — and MacLeod was playing Charlie Davenport — Spelling remembered his promise.
For six and a half weeks, Gavin MacLeod worked on The Love Boat near Los Angeles by day, and on stage in San Francisco by night. At 4:30 p.m., somebody would take him to LAX for the flight to San Francisco and when the stage show ended, he'd return to L.A.
"My wife [Patti] used to say: 'There's a man getting in my bed at two o'clock and staying until six…I hope it's my husband!'" he laughs. "Aaron Spelling was a man of his word. Most people would have just said 'Forget it kid.' Good things happen to people who do the right thing."
Meanwhile, back to the ship, and Gavin MacLeod's stories…
About the first season:
"The critics didn't like it. They said it was going to sink like the Titanic. They said it was impossible to do a one-hour show with three different stories. But people were watching because it made them feel good. I remember going to the cleaners once and there was a new employee there who said: 'Aren't you The captain?' I said I was and she said: 'Thank you for this show. It gave me something to dream about.' That was the number one or number two reason it was successful."
About Captain Stubing:
"The concept of the captain changed. All the regulars on the ship knew they were getting a new captain, and that he was the meanest man on the seven seas. He rode around in a golf cart and wore dark sunglasses. We had to rewrite him because he was really mean 
and I can't do mean week after week. So we slowly turned him into the patriarch of the seas. The Captain was more like me than some of the characters I played. Jessica Tandy once told me: 'You'll make the most money from what is least required of you.' I was in actor's heaven."
About sailing on The Love Boat:
"It sat there all the time. We'd go out six weeks a year, to Mexico. We went as far as Acapulco. Then after four or five years they said we had to go bigger, to Europe, and start the season there. We had actors on until London, and then they would fly home and more actors would come in and we'd go to Paris. Then we went to Copenhagen, and Russia, and Asia. I probably would never have gone to all those places. And we're getting paid at the same time! It gave us something to dream about…places to dream about…that was sensational. And the bigger the trip, the bigger the names we'd get. When we went to the Great Wall of China, Fred Grandy [Burl ‘Gopher’ Smith on the show] said: 'It's a nice wall. I don't know about great.'"
About The Love Boat's guest stars:
"The guests were part of the success of the show. We had everybody, it seemed. We had Helen Hayes, Andy Warhol (above) and The Temptations all on the same show. I don't think anyone's ever done that. Sometimes it was like a circus. Sir John Mills was on, with Hayley and Juliet [his daughters] and it was the first time they'd all worked together. We didn't get Orson Wells. We tried, because Raymond Burr was coming on, and Raymond had become quite large and we needed someone to balance the ship!"
About The Love Boat's impact on his life:
"I never considered myself a star. I'm just an actor who has been blessed, number one because it was a huge success, and I just wanted to be good. One time, this lady asks me if I'm Captain Stubing and then she says: 'I want you to take a message. Tell those writers I love it. They give you those messages but they cover it with cotton candy.' I'm so glad those other two captains didn't work out, because I was not going to get out of Annie Get Your Gun. It changed my life more than anything I've ever done, all for the good."
Tomorrow: Gavin MacLeod, since he was Captain Stubing.
Carnival Freedom
6 nights
January 20, 2013
Fort Lauderdale (return): Key West, Grand Cayman, Ocho Rios
Inside: $369
Cost per day: $61
www.carnival.com