McHale's Navy (1962)

 

The origins of McHale's Navy have been well-documented on Wikipedia and in Denny Reese and Steven Thompson's Set Sail With McHale, as well as elsewhere--Ernest Borgnine first portrayed Quinton McHale in an episode of Alcoa Premiere titled "Seven Against the Sea" along with future McHale's Navy cast members Gary Vinson and John Wright in April 1962. But this episode was a 1-hour drama that co-starred Ron Foster as McHale's commanding officer Lt. Durham, and while the McHale character in this drama was also anti-authoritarian and a moonshiner (as Wright's character would be in the subsequent sit-com), the general tone was much more serious and heroic rather than the light-hearted slapstick TV series. Reese and Thompson say that by the time the Alcoa Premiere dramatic episode aired, the decision had already been made to turn it into a regular series. But exactly how it went from a serious drama to a screwball comedy is not definitively explained. Borgnine said in a later interview that the TV series was supposed to be a vehicle for Foster, then under contract to Universal Pictures, but "that didn't work out." The Wikipedia article claims that producer Jennings Lang recalled the 1953 feature film Destination Gobi with Richard Widmark playing a commander named McHale as an inspiration for turning the TV series into a comedy, but that movie bears virtually no resemblance to McHale's Navy other than the leading character's last name. What is clear is that McHale's Navy producer Ed Montagne had worked as a producer in the last two seasons of The Phil Silvers Show and recruited actors like Billy Sands and Bob Hastings who had been regulars or semi-regulars on the program. (The Wikipedia article says that Montagne also recruited Sgt. Bilko writers, but none of the 1962 episodes, the first 11 of the series, were written by anyone with credits for The Phil Silvers Show.) The general gist of a renegade group of military men flouting authority by conducting unofficial business of their own for comedic effect is obviously borrowed from The Phil Silvers Show with a few contemporary cultural add-ons--a South Pacific location to capitalize on the then-popular tiki/Polynesian fad (not to mention other TV shows like Adventures in Paradise and Hawaiian Eye) and a PT boat recalling the military backstory of then-President John F. Kennedy. However, copying The Phil Silvers Show was not an original idea--Hanna Barbera had already done so in animated fashion on Top Cat, which failed to last more than a single season.

But even despite the inclusion of comedic superstars Joe Flynn and Tim Conway in the cast could not elevate the new program to the level of the predecessor it was trying to emulate because it lacked the creative force that made the earlier show a success--Nat Hiken. All one has to do is compare an episode of Car 54, Where Are You? to McHale's Navy to see the difference between innovative and quirky creativity versus tired, repetitious imitation. (It's no coincidence that the fourth episode of McHale's Navy  is titled "PT73, Where Are You?") Nearly all of the 11 episodes that aired in 1962 center around McHale and/or his men trying to do something against Navy policy and Binghamton unsuccessfully trying to catch them at it so that he can court martial them. In the just-mentioned episode "PT73, Where Are You?"(November 1, 1962) romantic hunk Virgil Edwards takes the PT boat out on a late night date, then forgets where he left it, forcing McHale and his men to cover up the missing boat from Binghamton until they can find it. In "A Purple Heart for Gruber" (October 18, 1962), Gruber tries to fake an injury so that he can be awarded a Purple Heart to give his mother back home bragging rights while also covering up the secret laundry service he is running at Binghamton's expense. "Operation Wedding Party" (November 15, 1962) has McHale trying to set up a secret marriage ceremony for Christopher and nurse Lt. Gloria Winters officiated by a friendly padre on an island 100 miles away without Binghamton finding out, while "The Day They Captured Santa" (December 27, 1962) has McHale and his men playing Santa and his brownies for an orphanage that is captured by the Japanese. In "McHale's Paradise Hotel" (December 6, 1962), McHale and his men are sent to investigate an island for possible Japanese infiltration and find an abandoned plantation house they turn into a party shack away from Binghamton's prying eyes, whereas in the next episode, "The Battle of McHale's Island" (December 20, 1962), they sabotage Binghamton's attempt to build an officer's club on their island, which would ruin their ability to flout his authority outside his purview. Repeatedly Binghamton gets wind of their activities and tells himself he has finally got McHale dead to rights only to see his victory snatched from his fingers at the last moment. The Wikipedia article about the series says that it was canceled in 1966 after "only" four seasons due to "low ratings and  repetitive storylines," but the latter shortcoming was there from the beginning. It's a wonder the series lasted as long as it did.

Other than the episode "McHale and His Seven Cupids" (October 26, 1962) in which McHale and his men try to fix up Ensign Parker with a nurse he is crazy about, the rest of the early episodes follow the same formula and make for pretty predictable viewing. It's telling that in the program's final season, the crew is relocated to Italy to try to spice things up as a result of running the South Pacific angle into the ground. More interesting are the real-life stories of the actors on the series, from Ernest Borgnine's disastrous marriage to Ethel Mermen, to Gavin MacLeod contemplating suicide because he was so depressed about his role on the show, to John "Bobby" Wright's career as a country music star. To mangle a well-worn truism--sometimes truth is more entertaining than fiction.

The theme music and scores for early individual episodes for McHale's Navy were composed by Axel Stordahl, best known as Frank Sinatra's primary arranger and musical director during his decade recording for Columbia Records from 1943-53. Stordahl was born August 8, 1913 on Staten Island, NY and began his musical career as a trumpeter with a series of Long Island and Catskills-based jazz bands in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1933 he was hired by Anthony Fanzo to play trumpet and provide arrangements for his orchestra. In 1935 Tommy Dorsey hired Stordahl to arrange for the band he took over from Joe Haymes, and Stordahl provided the arrangement for what would be Dorsey's signature tune, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," a major hit for the band that year. When Sinatra was added to Dorsey's band in the early 1940s, Stordahl began arranging for him and was particularly effective on ballads on which he would back Sinatra's sensitive vocals with lush strings and woodwinds, creating an intimate feel. When Sinatra recorded his first four solo recordings for Bluebird in 1942, Stordahl again provided the arrangements, and when Sinatra left Dorsey and signed with Columbia as a solo artist later that year, Stordahl went with him and remained with him for the next decade. Not only did Stordahl arrange for Sinatra, but he also co-wrote a few of his major hits, such as "I Should Care" and "Day by Day." Stordahl also provided backings for Sinatra in his films, such as Anchors Aweigh, Step Lively, and It Happened in Brooklyn, as well as his radio and TV programs, including The Frank Sinatra Show in 1950-52, and many live performances. In 1951 Stordahl married singer June Hutton, formerly of the Pied Pipers, for whom Stordahl had also arranged. When Sinatra left Columbia for Capitol Records in 1953, he tried bringing Stordahl along, but Capitol wanted a new direction for Sinatra since his popularity had waned in later years at Columbia, so they paired Sinatra with Nelson Riddle and later Billy May and Gordon Jenkins. When Stordahl became musical director for Eddie Fisher, Sinatra was displeased, though he finally recorded his last concept album for Capitol in 1961 with Stordahl, Point of No Return. In the interim, Stordahl worked with several other high-profile vocalists such as Doris Day, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, and Nat King Cole. He wrote the music for McHale's Navy shortly before his death from cancer at the age of 50 on August 30, 1963.

The complete series has been released on DVD by Shout! Factory.

The Actors

For the biography of Joe Flynn, see the 1961 post on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

Ernest Borgnine

Ermes Effron Borgnino, born January 24, 1917, was the only child of Italian immigrant parents who separated when Borgnine was only 2 years old. His mother took him with her back to Italy for 4½ years before reconciling with his father and resettling in New Haven, Connecticut while also changing the family last name to Borgnine. Borgnine initially had no interest in acting and was undecided on a career when he finished high school, so he enlisted in the Navy in 1935. He was honorably discharged 6 years later, only 3 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, at which time he re-enlisted and served through the remainder of World War II, achieving the grade of gunner's mate first class while serving on a yacht that had been commandeered to patrol for submarines off the Atlantic coast. Upon his second discharge from the Navy in September 1945, Borgnine was still undecided on a career but took a factory job until deciding against that type of work. His mother suggested that he pursue a career in entertainment, since he enjoyed getting in front of people and "making a fool of himself," so he enrolled in the Randall School of Drama in Hartford, CT before moving on to the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. By 1949 he had moved to New York, where he made his Broadway debut in a stage production of Harvey, and married for the first time to Rhoda Kemins whom he met during his Navy days. In 1951 he made his television debut playing the villain Nargola in the science fiction series Captain Video and His Video Rangers, appearing in 12 episodes in that role, which helped him land his first feature-film role in Robert Siodmak's The Whistle at Eaton Falls that same year. His biggest break came two years later when he played sadistic jailer Fatso Judson in the Academy Award-winning feature From Here to Eternity, which led to a series of other villainous roles in movies such as Johnny Guitar, Vera Cruz, and Bad Day at Black Rock. In 1955 his career took another turn upward when he was cast as sensitive and shy butcher Marty Piletti in Paddy Chayefsky's Martie, which garnered him the Oscar for Best Actor. He began receiving more co-starring roles in films such as The Catered Affair opposite Bette Davis, Three Brave Men with Ray Milland, The Vikings alongside Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, and Torpedo Run with Glenn Ford. In 1958 he divorced Kemins and married actress Katy Jurado, from whom he was divorced 5 years later. In the late 1950s and early 60s he began taking on more TV guest spots in series such as Zane Grey Theatre, Wagon Train, and Laramie before being tabbed for the lead on the World War II-based comedy McHale's Navy beginning in the fall of 1962. Borgnine said in an interview that initially he turned down the offer to star in McHale's Navy, telling his agent that he was a movie actor, not a TV actor, but when a young boy selling chocolate bars to raise money for his school didn't recognize him but could name the stars of Gunsmoke, Have Gun--Will Travel, and other TV series, he decided to take on the role of McHale.

During McHale's Navy's 4-year span he appeared in only a couple of feature films--Robert Aldrich's thriller The Flight of the Phoenix and the truly terrible Hollywood mud slinger The Oscar. He also underwent his third and most disastrous marriage to Ethel Merman, which lasted a mere 38 days and is still the subject of much gossip. Borgnine claimed in later interviews that the marriage began to dissolve on the honeymoon to Hawaii and the Far East (financed by American Express, according to one source) when Merman was enraged that everyone knew Borgnine (then riding high as the star of a successful TV series) but no one seemed to know who she was. Other accounts claim that Borgnine married Merman because he was broke, while she was wealthy, and even admitted this to her on the flight to Hawaii. In any case, the short affair was spent hurling insults at each other until Borgnine had finally had enough and walked out. Merman devoted a single blank page to the marriage in her autobiography. In 1965 Borgnine married Donna Rancourt, and the couple had three children before divorcing in 1972. After McHale's Navy was canceled in 1966, Borgnine returned mostly to feature films for most of the next decade, most notably in The Dirty Dozen, Ice Station Zebra, The Wild Bunch, Willard, Hannie Caulder, The Poseidon Adventure, and Emperor of the North. In 1974 he appeared in two episodes of Little House on the Prairie before finding his next recurring role as Officer Joe Cleaver on the 1976-77 series Futurecop. By the early 1980s he was appearing in feature films such as Super Fuzz, Escape From New York, and High Risk as well as occasional guest spots on The Love Boat, Magnum P.I., and Matt Houston, then landed his next recurring role as Dominic Santini opposite Jan-Michael Vincent in Airwolf. He also appeared in a number of TV movies, most notably three Dirty Dozen encores. Though the quality of the productions he appeared in declined steadily over the years, Borgnine continued working into his 90s, playing doorman Manny Cordoba on The Single Guy in 1995-97, voicing the character Carface in the feature film All Dogs Go to Heaven and the TV series based on it, and voicing the character Mermaid Man in Spongebob Squarepants from 1999-2012 as well as various video games and videos spun off from the TV series. It is no coincidence that a male mermaid is commonly referred to as a merman, as in Ethel. Borgnine received an Emmy nomination for his work in the last episodes of ER in 2009. He passed away from renal failure at the age of 95 on July 8, 2012.

Tim Conway

Thomas Daniel Conway was born December 15, 1933 in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. His father was a polo pony groomer, and Conway would have a lifelong love for thoroughbred horse racing, even owning racehorses at one point. Conway studied radio and television at Bowling Green State University and joined the U.S. Army when he graduated in 1956. After being discharged from the Army in 1958, Conway returned to Cleveland and worked in local television, first on KYW where he teamed with Ernie Anderson to write and star in quirky local commercials. The two moved to WJW in 1960 where they produced comic skits that aired during movie intermissions until Conway was fired in 1962 for misleading station management that he had prior experience as a director. Conway would occasionally return to the air as a guest on Anderson's B-movie horror program Ghoulardi but he got his first big break when actress Rose Marie viewed some of his filmed skits with Anderson while on a 1961 publicity tour for The Dick Van Dyke Show. After Conway moved to New York, Marie helped him land a regular cast spot on The Steve Allen Show (where he would first meet future co-star Don Knotts) as well as occasional appearances on The Garry Moore Show (then home of future collaborator Carol Burnett) and The Mike Douglas Show. Producer Ed Montagne saw Conway on The Steve Allen Show  and recruited him to play Ensign Parker on McHale's Navy in 1962 even though Conway had very little acting experience at the time.

After becoming a household name and Emmy nominee for his work on McHale's Navy, Conway was given every opportunity to become a star in his own right after the series was canceled in 1966, but none of these opportunities panned out. He starred in the western spoof Rango as an inept Texas Ranger in 1967, but the series was canceled after 17 episodes. He would find more success as a guest star on The Carol Burnett Show beginning in 1967. Meanwhile, in 1970 he starred with former McHale's Navy co-star Joe Flynn on The Tim Conway Show, but the series lasted only 13 episodes. Later that year he hosted the variety series The Tim Conway Comedy Hour with a format much like The Carol Burnett Show, but again the series would last only 13 episodes. He was also a participant in the infamously disastrous Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In knock-off Turn-On which in some markets was canceled during the first commercial break of its one and only episode. However, he found more success in Walt Disney feature films, beginning in 1973 with The World's Greatest Athlete followed by his first collaboration with Don Knotts in The Apple Dumpling Gang two years later. He won the first of 6 Emmy Awards in 1973 while still a guest star on The Carol Burnett Show but would become a permanent cast member in 1975 when he replaced Lyle Waggoner, winning three more Emmys in 1977 and 1978, two for performance and one for writing. At the same time, more Disney movies followed--Gus (also with Don Knotts), The Shaggy D.A., The Billion Dollar Hobo, and The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again in 1979. In 1979 he and Knotts teamed up away from Disney for The Prizefighter and in 1980 in The Private Eyes. In 1983 he gave TV sit-coms another try, starring in the private detective spoof Ace Crawford ...Private Eye, but this time the series lasted but 5 episodes. In the late 1980s he created the character Dorf, a very short man with a Norwegian accent (much like his Carol Burnett Show character Mr. Tudball) who gives instructions on how to play various sports. He debuted the character on an episode of The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson as a horse jockey (a career Conway said he had considered as a young man) and then made a series of videos featuring the character ineptly giving instructions on how to play golf, drive a race car, lead an aerobics class, and so on. In the 1990s he made a number of TV guest appearances on series such as Newhart, Married...With Children, The Larry Sanders Show, and Coach, for which he won his fifth Emmy. He also appeared in occasional feature films such as Dear God, Speed 2: Cruise Control, and Air Bud: Golden Receiver. In 1999 he joined Ernest Borgnine on Spongebob Squarepants playing Borgnine's sidekick Barnacle Boy on the Spongebob TV series, video games, and feature films through 2012 when Borgnine passed away. This opened many other voicework opportunities throughout the rest of his career, most notably on the Christian-themed children's series of videos Hermie and Friends and DreamWorks Dragons. He also kept active with occasional TV guest spots, playing Tom Warner on 7 episodes of Yes, Dear, playing the character Nick twice on Hot in Cleveland, and winning his sixth Emmy for portraying Bucky Bright in a 2008 episode of 30 Rock. But by 2015 he was exhibiting health problems and retired from acting in 2016. He was eventually diagnosed with dementia in 2018 and passed away at age 85 on May 14, 2019.

Carl Ballantine

Born Meyer Kessler on September 27, 1917 in Chicago, Ballantine became fascinated with performing magic tricks at age 9 from his barber who would do tricks with thimbles while cutting the boy's hair. In the 1930s he was performing as a straight magician under various aliases, but by the early 1940s he realized he would never be as good as the other professional magicians, and one evening when one of his tricks flopped and he ad-libbed to cover, he made the audience laugh and discovered that his future lay in comedy. He renamed himself Ballantine after a brand of whiskey he thought sounded classy and was satirically billed as the world's greatest magician but deliberately goofed all his tricks or got distracted in the midst of them, such as reading the want ads in a newspaper he had just torn up and claimed he could magically put back together. During World War II, he entertained troops in England after being ruled ineligible to serve because of a bad back. His inept magician routine made him immensely popular from the late 1940s onward, appearing on The Milton Berle Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Garry Moore Show, The Steve Allen Plymouth Show, The Tonight Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Andy Williams Show, and The Dean Martin Show, to name but a few. In 1955 after his first marriage ended in divorce, he married actress Ceil Cabot, and the couple had two daughters, Saratoga and Molly Caliente, both named after horse-racing tracks. In 1956 he was the first magician to play Las Vegas at El Rancho Vegas. After playing magician Al Henderson, brother-in-law to Officer Toody on Car 54, Where Are You?, Ballantine was selected to play hustler and inept magician Lester Gruber on McHale's Navy. His character gives a demonstration of his hokey magic in the Season 1 episode "Who Do the Voodoo" (November 22, 1962).

Once McHale's Navy was canceled, Ballantine found one-off guest spots on a string of TV comedies such as That Girl, The Monkees, Mayberry R.F.D., and I Dream of Jeannie as well as the occasional western (Laredo, The Virginian) and a few feature films (Penelope, Speedway, The Shakiest Gun in the West). In 1969 he co-starred with Larry Storch in the pre-Love Boat cruise ship sit-com The Queen and I, but like Tim Conway's star vehicles it lasted but 13 weeks. In the 1970s he found more regular TV guest star roles on The Partridge Family, Love, American Style, Laverne & Shirley, and CHiPs, to name a few, as well as TV movies and an occasional feature film. In 1972 he appeared on Broadway in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, headlined by Phil Silvers, and he was a recurring panelist on The Gong Show. In 1980 he found his next recurring TV role as Max Kellerman on the pre-Taxi sit-com One in a Million starring Shirley Hemphill, but it also ran for only an unlucky 13 weeks. The remainder of the 1980s continued his string of TV guest appearances, frequently playing magicians or himself, on B.J. and the Bear, Fantasy Island, Alice, Madame's Place, Double Trouble, Blacke's Magic, Night Court, and The Cosby Show. In the 1990s he added animated voicework to his resume, most notably playing shyster Al J. Swindler on Garfield and Friends, and began working more on feature films than television, including appearing in Billy Crystal's Mr. Saturday Night. His last credit on film came in the 2006 feature Aimee Semple McPherson, but he continued occasionally performing his comedy magic act up until months before his death at the age of 92 on November 3, 2009. Comedian Steve Martin and illusionist David Copperfield both cited him as the greatest comedy magician and an influence on their careers. Rather than a funeral, his ashes were scattered at the Santa Anita racetrack in California.

Billy Sands

Born January 6, 1911 in Bergen, New York, William F. Sands began his entertainment career on the stage, appearing on Broadway in I'll Take the High Road in 1943, with Spencer Tracy in Rugged Path in 1946, and with Sid Caesar in Make Mine Manhattan in 1948. By the early 1950s he was doing comedy parts on TV variety shows such as All Star Revue, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Imogene Coca Show, and The Martha Raye Show, where he first worked with writer and director Nat Hiken. When Hiken created The Phil Silvers Show in 1955, he had Sands cast at Pvt. Dino Papperelli, appearing in 139 episodes over the series' four-season run. When Hiken then created Car54, Where Are You?, which debuted in the fall of 1961, Sands appeared in four guest spots playing a different character each time over the first two seasons. He also appeared in a single episode of The Defenders in its initial season and a TV movie titled Summer in New York. When producer Ed Montagne, a veteran of The Phil Silvers Show, created McHale's Navy, he chose Sands  for the supporting cast playing mechanic Harrison "Tinker" Bell.

After McHale's Navy, Sands made only a few small appearances in feature films such as The Reluctant Astronaut, P.J., and Hiken's The Love God? through the remainder of the 1960s. Things picked up beginning in 1970 when he served as the announcer and occasional character on Pat Paulsen's Half a Comedy Hour as well as guest spots on The Bill Cosby Show and Adam-12. Things remained busy throughout the 1970s. Though the feature film roles were small, sometimes uncredited, he nevertheless found his way into How to Frame a Figg, The Harrad Experiment, Rocky, Raid on Entebbe, The World's Greatest Lover, and High Anxiety. His TV appearances were higher profile and more frequent: two times on Love, American Style, five times on All in the Family, three times on Here's Lucy, five times on The Odd Couple, and twice on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Laverne & Shirley, and The Jeffersons, not to mention all the one-off appearances. In 1975 he landed the recurring role of Monte "Bang Bang" Valentine on the Sheldon Leonard comedy Big Eddie, which lasted all of 10 episodes. He had a few more one-off TV guest spots in the early 1980s before closing out his film credits with a recurring role as Harry during the first season of Webster. He died from lung cancer on August 24, 1984 at the age of 73.

Gavin MacLeod

Born Allan George See in Mount Kisco, New York on February 28, 1931, MacLeod grew up in the town of Pleasantville where his father owned a gas station, though MacLeod points out in his autobiography This Is Your Captain Speaking, his family lived on the poor side of the tracks. His mother had worked for Reader's Digest before he was born but became a housewife with his arrival. MacLeod says that he got the acting bug at age 4 after getting applause for his performance in a pre-school Mother's Day play. Though his mother supported his artistic ambitions as much as she could, his father did not approve and thought he was wasting time and money. His father was also an alcoholic and died from cancer when MacLeod was only 13. Again in his autobiography, MacLeod says his father's early death made him realize that life could be short, and he was determined to pursue his passion. He won awards playing tympani in his high school band and won a competition for solo one-act plays three years in a row. Nearing graduation from high school, he was advised by flaming baton twirler Shirley Ballard (not the actress who was Miss California of 1944) to apply for a drama scholarship at Ithaca College. There he was encouraged by drama teacher Beatrice MacLeod, whose last name he took as part of his stage name years later. At one point he dropped out to develop a vaudeville act with one of his classmates, but once they discovered that no one would hire them, since vaudeville by that time had faded, he was forced to return to school to finish his degree, though he switched majors from drama teaching to drama performance. After graduating from Ithaca, he moved to New York. A friend of his helped him land a job as an usher at Radio City Music Hall, which led to a promotion to elevator operator. But he had no luck finding acting jobs or even an agent because, he figured, there were no parts for a young bald guy. He decided he needed a hairpiece and managed to get a used one that used to belong to radio announcer Andre Baruch at a discount. Then he decided he needed a name change and came up with Gavin MacLeod, using the last name of his Ithaca drama teacher and a character from a memorable TV episode that he thought sounded authoritative. He met Rockette dancer Joan Rootvic at an Easter breakfast sponsored by St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the two hit it off, eventually getting married in 1955. After their honeymoon he took a job as a cashier at entertainment hotspot Jim Downey's Steakhouse, which was owned by the father of one of his best high school friends. Though he met celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Eli Wallach at the restaurant, he still wasn't getting parts or even an agent, and at age 25 he was beginning to wonder if he would ever make it. He finally made it to Broadway about a year later when Anthony Franciosa left the successful production of A Hatful of Rain to go to Hollywood, and MacLeod reminded director Frank Corsaro, with whom he had taken an acting class, that he had once promised to consider him for an understudy role in one of his shows. Corsaro brought him in for a reading, and he landed the part, allowing him to quit his cashier's job. When the show closed six months later, it was taken on the road, but MacLeod initially declined going with it because he and his wife had just lost their first baby to a miscarriage. However, the actor chosen for his spot did not work out, and Corsaro begged him to join the show in Chicago. Joan encouraged him to take the spot, so he did and gained valuable experience playing a number of roles as the show went from town to town, including Los Angeles. When he returned home after the road show finally closed, he knew his future lay in Hollywood. Though he could never find an agent in New York because, he says, of his bald head, he was able to land agent Lou Irwin, recommended by one of Joan's fellow Rockettes, on his first trip to Hollywood because of his bald head and the fact that he could play parts with or without hair, giving him greater versatility. In fact, he landed a guest spot on The Dick Van Dyke Show, where he worked for the first time with Mary Tyler Moore, because he was to play Richard Deacon's character's cousin, and Richard Deacon was bald. In 1958 he started getting bigger parts, beginning with the role of a policeman in the feature film  I Want to Live! whose star Susan Hayward won the Oscar for Best Actress. Then on the same day he was fired from filming the pilot of a Hal March vehicle, he was hired by Blake Edwards to play a drug dealer in the pilot for Peter Gunn. Edwards would hire him again several times over the years for his movies Operation Petticoat, High Time, and The Party as well as Edwards' other TV series Mr. Lucky. MacLeod also found work in a number of other feature films in the late 1950s and early 1960s--Compulsion, Pork Chop Hill, The Gene Krupa Story, and Twelve Hours to Kill--and on many TV shows--Steve Canyon, The Untouchables, Men Into Space, Lock Up, Dr. Kildare, and Cain's Hundred, to name but a few. In an interview many years later, he said that when he was contacted about reading for the role of Joseph "Happy" Haines on McHale's Navy he desperately needed money to make his house payments and he valued the opportunity to work with Carl Ballantine, whom he had seen perform in his New York days, even though both his wife and agent advised him against taking the part.

As it turned out, he should have heeded their advice because the part depressed him severely, relegated to only one or two lines per episode, he thought his career was doomed, and he says he even contemplated suicide until neighbor Robert Blake recommended him to a therapist who told him to get out of the show immediately. He went to producer Ed Montagne and pleaded to be released from the series, which Montagne graciously granted, so he left the show early in Season 3 but immediately found guest spots on many other series, such as The Munsters, Rawhide, Gomer Pyle: USMC, The Andy Griffith Show, and My Favorite Martian in addition to feature film roles in The Sword of Ali Baba, Deathwatch, and The Sand Pebbles with friend Steve McQueen whom he had met back in his road show days with A Hatful of Rain a decade earlier. Though MacLeod remained extremely busy with TV guest spots and feature films such as Kelly's Heroes throughout the late 1960s, his career ratcheted up another level when he was cast as TV news writer Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore beginning in 1970. Originally, he was brought in to read for the part of Lou Grant, but MacLeod did not feel he would be convincing as Mary's boss and actually thought the role of Slaughter was better suited to his talents, so after reading for Grant and giving a good interview, he confessed that he preferred the part of Slaughter, and the part of Grant was given to Ed Asner. During the series' 7-year run, he and Joan, with whom he had two sons and two daughters, divorced in 1972, and he remarried to Patti Kendig in 1974. As soon as The Mary Tyler Moore Show signed off in spring of 1977, he was considering reviving a stage routine he had worked up with his wife when his agent called and said Aaron Spelling wanted him to play Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat, though the agent was dismissive about the show, saying it sucked. But MacLeod read the pilot script and after showing it to his wife, another actress, and discussing the show concept with his gardener, he decided to take the part. The show launched in the Fall of 1977 and ran for a decade and 250 episodes through 1987. Though he would find occasional work outside the series on other shows such as Wonder Woman and Hotel in addition to a couple of TV movies and the mini-series Scruples, his back-to-back roles as nonthreatening nice guys wound up typecasting him, and he again became depressed and started drinking heavily, leading to a divorce from Patti in 1982. However, after converting from Catholicism to evangelical Christianity in 1984, he and Patty reconciled and remarried in 1985. They used their personal journey as the springboard for a memoir titled Back on Course as well as hosting a TV show about marriage on the Trinity Network for 17 years. His role on The Love Boat also landed him a job as global ambassador for Princess Cruises beginning in 1986. Though his TV and movie roles became fewer after The Love Boat, he still remained active, appearing in episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Oz, The King of Queens, JAG, Touched by an Angel, and That '70s Show as well as occasional Love Boat reunions. His final credit was a guest spot along with Love Boat cast member Bernie Kopell in the 2014 debut episode for the TV series The Comeback Kids. He died at his home in Palm Desert, California on May 29, 2021 at the age of 90.

Gary Vinson

Robert Gary Vinson was born in El Segundo, California on October 22, 1936, where he attended El Segundo High School and El Camino Community College. In El Segundo, he was recreation director for three playgrounds, head of the Boys Club, manager of a Little League baseball team, and a Sunday school teacher at his Methodist church, all of which won him the Young Man of the Year award in 1958. His television career had actually begun four years earlier when he appeared as a studio page on the first episode of The Milton Berle Show to be broadcast from Burbank. By 1957 he was appearing in guest spots on West Point, The Court of Last Resort, Gunsmoke, and Perry Mason as well as feature films such as Rockabilly Baby. In an interview some years later, he remarked about this period of his career, "I started during the Marlon Brando era when guys my age in Hollywood were all wearing pouts, torn shirts, mussed hair and looked like they needed a bath. I refused to go that route so whenever anyone needed an All-American boy type I was the only All-American boy type available." He continued to be in demand throughout 1958, appearing on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Bat Masterson, Harbor Command, and Whirlybirds, and the following year signed a contract with Warner Brothers, which led to appearances on Maverick, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Lawman, Bronco, Colt .45, 77 Sunset Strip, Room for One More , and Bourbon Street Beat. When Warners launched its Untouchables counterpart The Roaring 20's in 1960, Vinson received third billing as copyboy Chris Higbee, appearing in 39 episodes over the show's two-season run. In an interview that ran in the Arizona Republic during this time, Vinson made a point of saying he continued to commute from his hometown of El Segundo in order to keep from being corrupted by Hollywood life, saying he liked staying with his boyhood friends. Guest spots continued on a number of non-Warners series in 1962, including Laramie, Wagon Train, The Tall Man, and Going My Way before he landed his next recurring role as quartermaster George Christopher on McHale's Navy.

Other than appearing in the two McHale's Navy feature films, he stuck to appearing on the TV series exclusively until it finished in 1966, but he was then quickly snapped up to star in the western comedy Pistols 'n' Petticoats along with Ann Sheridan and Douglas Fowley, playing inept Sheriff Harold Sikes for the series' lone season in 1966-67. Now 30 years old and with the TV landscape changing, Vinson's All-American boy type was in less demand, but he still found steady work on series such as The F.B.I., The Virginian, and The Mod Squad through the remaining 1960s, then continued on Love, American Style, McCloud, The Streets of San Francisco, The Waltons, Police Story, and Battlestar Gallactica in the 1970s. In the 1980s he appeared on Barnaby Jones, B.J. and the Bear, The Fall Guy, and The Incredible Hulk until he committed suicide at the age of 47 on October 15, 1984. Several web sites cryptically say he was facing serious legal charges, while on the message board on sitcomsonline.com, two people posted that they have first-hand knowledge that the legal charges he faced were child molestation.

Edson Stroll

Edson Roy Stroll was born in Chicago on January 6, 1929, and was perhaps the most nautical of the McHale's Navy cast, joining the U.S. Navy in the late 1940s and having an extensive career on the water after the series ended. After his Navy service, he enrolled at the American Theater Wing in New York to study acting and singing and worked for the New York Shakespeare Festival for three seasons. He won roles in several touring Broadway musicals and took up body building, which garnered him work as a beefcake model. He made his television debut in a 1958 episode of How to Marry a Millionaire and had an uncredited part in the feature film The Wild and the Innocent the following year. In 1960 he appeared on Tombstone Territory, Sea Hunt, Lock Up, and Men Into Space as well as the Elvis Presley feature G.I. Blues but most memorably appeared opposite Donna Douglas in the iconic Twilight Zone episode "Eye of the Beholder." In 1961 he had a major part as Prince Charming in Snow White and the Three Stooges, doing well enough to be cast again in the Stooges next feature The Three Stooges in Orbit, released in 1962. He appeared in another memorable Twilight Zone episode, "The Trade-Ins," that same year, in addition to being cast as Virgil Edwards on McHale's Navy and its two feature film spin-offs.

Other than a single appearance on the TV series It's About Time in 1967, Stroll switched to other pursuits with acting as an occasional sideline thereafter. He owned a men's second-hand clothing shop in Beverly Hills in the 1960s and received a license as a certified real estate appraiser. He was also licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard to pilot commercial vessels and was qualified as a marine surveyor, which made him a sought-after expert witness in marine-related court cases. In a non-professional capacity, he was a member of the Marina Venice Yacht Club and the Classic Yacht Association. But he also took occasional work as an actor--the 1975 TV series The Lost Saucer, a Rosemary Clooney biopic TV movie in 1982, five appearances as the character Carlson on General Hospital in 1983, and episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Hotel, Dynasty, Simon & Simon, and Dallas through the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. His last credit came in an Argentinean feature film Bad Memories in 2009. He died from cancer on July 18, 2011 at the age of 82.

John Wright

John Robert Wright was the son of country music stars Kitty Wells and Johnnie Wright, born March 30, 1942 in Charleston, West Virginia. Wright grew up in Louisiana where his parents were regulars on the Louisiana Hayride TV program. The family then moved to Nashville in 1958 when the parents became headliners at the Grand Ole Opry. Initially, Wright wasn't interested in a music career, despite appearing with his two sisters on his mother's TV program, The Kitty Wells Family Show, and when he learned that director Peter Tewksbury was looking for a young southern man who could play guitar, he went to Hollywood to audition for the part, which he did not get. However, when McHale's Navy producer Ed Montagne saw his screen test, he cast Wright as moonshining sailor Willy Moss on the Naval series.

After McHale's Navy went off the air, Wright landed one guest spot on Gary Vinson's Pistols 'n' Petticoats series in 1966 but then grew disenchanted with the film business and finally decided to retreat to the music world under the name Bobby Wright. Moving back to Nashville, Wright began by recording for his mother's record label Decca beginning in 1967, with his first single, "Lay Some Happiness on Me," reaching #44 on the Country Music charts. His highest charting hit for Decca was "Here I Go Again," which peaked at #13 in 1971 and was also the title for his lone Decca LP. After his 1972 cover of Bob Dylan's "If Not for You" peaked at #75 in 1973, he switched labels to ABC Records and covered the infamous Terry Jacks pop hit "Seasons in the Sun" in 1974, hitting #24 on the US Country charts. But by 1975 he had switched labels again, this time to United Artists, for whom he released four charting singles, the highest being the last, "I'm Turning You Loose," at #77 in 1979. He released his last single for United Artists a year later. During this time and for decades afterward he toured with his parents until they retired in 2007. He did take an occasional acting job during his country music years, appearing in the feature films Catch the Black Sunshine (with Ted Cassidy of Addams Family fame) in 1974 and Lock Up a decade later. His final credit came in the 1985 TV movie Emerging. As of this date, Wright is the lone surviving regular cast member of McHale's Navy.

Yoshio Yoda

Born in Tokyo on March 31, 1934, Yoda initially went to Keio University to study law, but while a student he met Edward Ugast of 20th Century Fox who convinced him to pursue a career in film. He emigrated to California and enrolled at USC to become a movie producer, but when Joe Pasternak was looking for a young man fluent in English and Japanese to play in The Horizontal Lieutenant, USC professor William White suggested that Yoda audition for the part. Yoda was unsure, having no prior acting experience, but was hired after a single meeting, and when Revue Studios' Jerry Henshaw saw the movie, he recommended Yoda to McHale's Navy producer Ed Montagne for the part of Japanese prisoner-of-war Fuji Kobiaji. During the production of the series, Yoda continued his education via night school classes, eventually finishing a degree in cinema arts. In 1964 it was announced he was engaged to Japanese fashion model Kyoko Okazaki, with a marriage planned for that June.

But after McHale's Navy went off the air, Yoda did not become a movie producer as he had planned. After a single guest spot on a 1969 episode of Love, American Style, he left the world of entertainment and wound up living in Hawaii for 15 years where he became a U.S. citizen under the name James Yoda and worked for Toyota, promoted to the executive position of Assistant Vice President and Senior Division Manager of Inventory as of 1987. In 2012 he retired to Fullerton, California, where he died at age 88 on January 13, 2023.

Bob Hastings

Robert Francis Hastings was born in Brooklyn on April 18, 1925, the son of a salesman. Hastings began his career in radio as a boy singer from the age of 11 on WMCA, then appeared on the popular Coast to Coast on a Bus and eventually moved to doing acting on soap operas such as Our Barn in New York. According to an interview from 1988, he began also appearing on the Chicago-based country music program National Barn Dance in either 1939 or 1940 at the same time he was appearing on New York programs such as Pretty Kitty Kelley and Hilltop House. Beginning in 1942 he played Jerry on The Adventures of Sea Hound & Jerry until he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943, where he served as a navigator on B-29 bombers. When he returned to civilian life in 1945, he was hired to take over the lead role on Archie Andrews, which he continued for 8 years while at the same time appearing on other programs such as The Aldrich Family, Dimension X, and Cavalcade of America. After his brother Don landed a regular role as The Video Ranger on the early TV series Captain Video and His Video Rangers, Bob got his own science fiction-based TV series Atom Squad in 1953-54. He continued working in radio in the mid 1950s on shows such as Inheritance and X Minus One while also appearing occasionally on TV programs such as his brother's show, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, Mr. Citizen, Mama, and Crunch and Des as well as a few drama anthology series. In 1958 he had a recurring role as the title character's brother on the soap opera Kitty Foyle, but the series ran for only one season before cancellation. However, from 1956-59 he also appeared eight times on The Phil Silvers Show in a variety of roles, thereby making a connection with producer Ed Montagne which would wind up landing him a regular role as Capt. Binghamton's aide, Lt. Elroy Carpenter, on McHale's Navy. In the interim, he was an in-demand guest player on dozens of TV series, including The Real McCoys, The Donna Reed Show, The Untouchables, Hennesey, Angel, The Tall Man, Car 54, Where Are You?, Dennis the Menace, and Gunsmoke.

During his years on McHale's Navy, Hastings' guest appearances on other series were considerably fewer on shows such as Mister Ed, The Twilight Zone, and Petticoat Junction, but he also started doing voicework on animated series, leveraging his past experience as a radio actor, beginning with The New Casper Cartoon Show in 1963 and provided the voice of The Raven on The Munsters. When McHale's Navy was canceled, he found work doing the voices of Clark Kent and Superboy on The New Adventures of Superman, The Adventures of Superboy, Superboy, The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, and The Adventures of Batman. While his live-action guest spots decreased during this period, he got his first credited feature film parts in Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady? and The Bamboo Saucer in 1968 and made his first foray into TV soap operas playing Barney on The Edge of Night in 1969. He started finding more feature film roles as the 1960s turned over to the 1970s in movies such as Angel in My Pocket, The Love God?, The Boatniks, and How to Frame a Figg, though he also continued the occasional TV appearance on The Flying Nun, Here's Lucy, Green Acres, and My Three Sons. Beginning in 1971 he had a semi-recurring role as bar owner Tommy Kelsey on All in the Family, playing the part a dozen times over a 5-year period. He also appeared in multiple episodes, though in different roles, on Love, American Style, Ironside, and Adam-12, as well as scores of single appearances on other series. His most consistent work, however, was in animated series, voicing Henry Glopp on The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Jeannie. In the late 1970s he voiced D.D. on Clue Club, Loud Mouse on Undercover Elephant, and various voices on episodes of Posse Impossible, C B Bears, Blast-Off Buzzard, Heyyy, It's the King!, Shake, Rattle and Roll, Yogi's Space Race, and Super Friends. He also appeared in several TV movies and series such as Police Story, The Love Boat, Operation Petticoat, Quincy, M.E., Harper Valley P.T.A., Wonder Woman, Alice, The Incredible Hulk, and Three's Company, to name but a few. In 1978 he took the part of detective Capt. Burt Ramsey on General Hospital, a role he played for the next 8 years, while also guest starring on The Dukes of Hazzard, The Greatest American Hero, Trapper John, M.D., and Remington Steele. Beginning in 1993 he became the voice of Commissioner Gordon on a number of Batman animated series, feature films, video games, and videos. His last TV series credit came on a 1990 episode of Major Dad, and his last feature film credit was two years later in Shadow Force. After battling prostate cancer for 15 years, he passed away June 30, 2014 at the age of 89.

Jane Dulo

Bernice Dewlow was born in Baltimore on October 13, 1917, the daughter of a shoe repairman. Though she said in a 1945 interview that no one else in her family was in show business, she said that she was interested in performing from the time she could watch herself in her mother's bedroom mirror. At age 13 she lied about her age to get spots doing a song and monologue routine in Baltimore night clubs. Upon graduation from high school, she moved to New York and was cast in the musical Chuckles, but it did not last long, and by age 17 she was headlining her song and comedy routine at Wardman Park in Washington, D.C.  She took the stage name Ginger Dulo and then found work as a vocalist for the Benny Davis orchestra in 1935. After failing to find a permanent spot in New York and periodically returning to Baltimore, even considering leaving show business at one point to open a hat shop, she finally moved to New York for the last time in 1942, performing her singing and comedy routine at the Village Vanguard and Le Reuban Bleu. While performing at La Martinique, she was spotted by Richard Kollmar who recruited her to be Nancy Walker's understudy in the 1944 Broadway production of On the Town, at which point she adopted the new stage name of Jane Dillon. However, a year and a half later she was contacted by a Connecticut-based radio commentator of the same name who threatened to sue her, so she changed her name again to Jane Dulo (she actually got more newspaper coverage on the story of her name changes than on her performances). Her experience with On the Town led to a leading role in the 1945 musical Are You With It? with Lew Parker and Dolores Gray. In a December 16, 1945 feature story in the Brooklyn Eagle, she told the reporter, "I'm not engaged, and I'm not married. I tried the former once--but love ain't for me." But that would be her only Broadway appearance. She used her nightclub act to get into television, appearing on variety programs such as The Fifty-Fourth Street Revue in 1949 and Cavalcade of the Bands, All Star Revue (where she would first cross paths with Nat Hiken), and The Robert Q. Lewis Show all in 1950. But she also kept up her nightclub act, billed for appearing at the Monte Carlo in Pittsburgh in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph on March 26, 1951. That year she also made her television acting debut as a supporting character on the live production Two Girls Named Smith starring Peggy Ann Garner and Marcia Henderson. Her work on All Star Revue landed her a pair of appearances on The Martha Raye Show in 1954 as well as a regular spot in a traveling version of the program. In 1955 she made the first three of 10 appearances on another Hiken production, The Phil Silvers Show, mostly playing Pvt. Mildred Lukens or Marge the waitress, though occasionally playing other characters. She had her next recurring role playing Liz Murray in the 1956-57 sit-com Hey, Jeannie! starring British actress Jeannie Carson. Though she had a couple of other guest spots in the late 1950s, her TV career really began to pick up in 1961, when she appeared on Pete and Gladys, The Tom Ewell Show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Ann Sothern Show, and Holiday Lodge. The next year was likewise busy, as she was seen on Leave It to Beaver, The Tall Man, The Andy Griffith Show, Hennesey, I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, and the first of four appearances as Natalie Trillby on The Joey Bishop Show. The year also marked the first two of her 14 appearances on McHale's Navy as McHale suitor Nurse Molly Turner (though in the episode ”McHale's Paradise Hotel" she is credited as Molly Hunter).

Since her work on McHale's Navy was only semi-regular, she had time to appear on other programs over the next four years, including The Red Skelton Hour, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Farmer's Daughter, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  In 1964 she made her feature film debut in the Elvis Presley vehicle Roustabout and found her next semi-regular role as Jack Benny's cook on The Jack Benny Program. After McHale's Navy ended, she continued getting guest spots on series such as Gunsmoke, That Girl, I Dream of Jeannie, Gomer Pyle, USMC, My Three Sons, and four episodes of Get Smart playing Agent 99's mother. After another semi-regular role as Nurse Murphy on Medical Center from 1970-72, her number of guest appearances decreased but remained steady in the 1970s on shows such as The Odd Couple, All in the Family, The Lost Saucer, Emergency!, Quincy, M.E., The Ropers, and as a nurse again in 2 episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter. She had a regular role as the Woman in the Window on 12 episodes of the Sha Na Na TV series from 1977-79, then was cast as Grandma Mildred Kanisky for 8 episodes of Gimme a Break! in 1982-83. And she continued finding work throughout the 1980s on Three's Company, Diff'rent Strokes, Alice, Santa Barbara, Cagney & Lacey, The Facts of Life, and Night Court. After a three-year dry spell, she returned in 1992 to appear in single episodes of The Wonder Years and The Golden Girls. Two years later she passed away after cardiac surgery on May 22, 1994 at the age of 76. As she told her interviewer in 1945, she never married.

Notable Guest Stars

Season 1, Episode 1, "An Ensign for McHale": Andy Romano  (appeared in Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini and played Lt. Joe Caruso on Get Christie Love!, Frank Richards on Friends (1979), Warren Briscoe on Hill Street Blues, and Inspector Aiello on NYPD Blue) plays a Marine sentry.

Season 1, Episode 2, "A Purple Heart for Gruber": Dale Ishimoto (shown on the left, appeared in Battle at Bloody Beach, King Rat, Midway, and Enter the Ninja) plays the Japanese sub commander.

Season 1, Episode 3, "McHale and His Seven Cupids": Betsy Jones-Moreland (shown on the right, appeared in Day of the Outlaw, Last Woman on Earth, and Creature From the Haunted Sea and played Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Abbott on Days of Our Lives and Judge Elinor Harrelson in 7 Perry Mason TV movies) plays nurse Lt. Casey Brown.

Season 1, Episode 5, "Movies Are Your Best Diversion": Leon Lontoc (appeared in On the Isle of Samoa, I Was an American Spy, and The Ugly American and played Henry on Burke's Law) plays indigenous chief Maku-Maku. Mako (appeared in The Ugly Dachshund, The Sand Pebbles, The Hawaiians, Conan the Barbarian, and Conan the Destroyer, played Major Taro Oshira on Hawaiian Heat and Master Li on Black Sash, and voiced Aku on Samurai Jack and the Uncle on Avatar: The Last Airbender) plays a Japanese sentry. John Fujioka (Kevin on The Last Resort and Todo on Tales of the Gold Monkey) plays the Japanese major's aide.

Season 1, Episode 6, "Operation Wedding Party": Cynthia Chenault (shown on the left, appeared in I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Dino, and This Earth is Mine and played Carol Potter on The Tom Ewell Show) plays Christopher's fiance Lt. Gloria Winters. Dom Matheson (Mark Wilson on Land of the Giants and Mr. Padgett on Falcon Crest) plays PT boat skipper Lt. Harris. Bob Okazaki (appeared in Jungle Heat, The Crimson Kimono, and Hell to Eternity and played Bruce on Archie Bunker's Place) plays a Japanese officer.

Season 1, Episode 7, "Who Do the Voodoo": Jacques Aubuchon (shown on the right, starred in The Silver Chalice, The Big Boodle, and The Love God?) plays spell caster Chief Pali Urulu. Willis Bouchey (Mayor Terwilliger on The Great Gildersleeve, Springer on Pete and Gladys, and the judge 23 times on Perry Mason) plays Binghamton's replacement Admiral Homer Hawkins.

Season 1, Episode 8, "Three Girls on an Island": Marian Collier (Marilyn Scott on Mr. Novak) plays singing trio leader Peggy Tyler. Jackie Russell (shown on the far left, played Peggy Connolly on The Joey Bishop Show) plays her sister Lil. Asa Maynor (shown on the near left, played Dixie on Straightaway) plays her sister Rita.

Season 1, Episode 9, "McHale's Paradise Hotel": Barbara Lyon (daughter of actors Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, played herself on Life With the Lyons) plays a nurse boarding PT73.

Season 1, Episode 11, "The Day They Captured Santa": Anna Lee (shown on the right, starred in King Solomon's Mines, How Green Was My Valley, Flying Tigers, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Sound of Music, and In Like Flint and played Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital) plays orphanage proprietor Pamela Parfrey. Cherylene Lee (appeared in Donovan's Reef and A Letter to Nancy and voiced Susie and Mimi Chan on The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan) plays orphan Tani. Noel Drayton (Mr. Hardcastle on Family Affair) plays a British ship commander.