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.
