How was Gavin MacLeod not gay??

He always pinged to me, too

Cmon, even Hellen Keller could see that he was a FAG.

[quote] a faith walk that began as a Roman Catholic, detoured through the New Age movement in the 1970s, and ended up firmly planted in the Pentecostal faith. That path included depression, alcohol and divorce, but he credits God’s forgiveness with carrying him through.

“God’s forgiveness”?

He probably was gay and just subverted it like many men of his era. Or perhaps he sent the wife and the kids on weekend trips and entertained "friends" while they were gone.

If you watch "The Love Boat" reruns, Gavin Mcleod doesn't seem very gay as Captain Stubing. He just seemed gay as Murray Slaughter, who made no sense as a character. He was supposedly straight and had three daughters and was a Minnesota native, and yet he came across as flaming and bitchy and spoke with a heavy New York accent.

Captain Stubing was never as flaming as Murray but he had no chemistry with the woman he romanced.

ComPLETEly straight!!!

He loved the pussy as much as I did!!!

But lucky for him he wasn't widowed three times.

Why do you ask this question every month? Are you mentally ill?

[quote]He just seemed gay as Murray Slaughter, who made no sense as a character. He was supposedly straight and had three daughters and was a Minnesota native, and yet he came across as flaming and bitchy and spoke with a heavy New York accent.

Actually, if you consider the times, his being married with children and possibly gay does make sense.

MTM Show debuted in 1970. Murray's children were teenagers, which meant he probably married in the 1950s. There were few options to being an out gay man in the 1950s. Many men who knew they were gay also married to protect their lives and careers from suspicion.

I have heard that he was a delightful guy.

(Hilariously, he was the speaker at my college graduation, as he was an alum. Some people get Bill Gates or Oprah; we got Captain Steubing.)

All actors are kinda gay.

Murray was originally conceived as a role for Charles Nelson Reilly. So, that's where the gayness comes from.

Murray Slaughter was originally intended to be a bitchy queen who sparred with Mary in the office.

But just as Mary Richards’ status as a divorced woman, the gay Murray idea was jettisoned by the network as being too risqué for prime time. Moreover, the chemistry with him as Mary’s nemesis didn’t work.

Macleod’s characterization of Murray remained pretty fucking gay, though, and they returned to the bitchy sparring once Sue Ann Nivens was introduced, resulting in a much better dynamic with plenty of bald and slut putdowns for the remainder of the series.

This is a great book if you want to see the genesis of the series and how it evolved over seven seasons.

[quote] If you watch "The Love Boat" reruns, Gavin Mcleod doesn't seem very gay as Captain Stubing.

I don't know about that. Who can forget this classic "Love Boat" scene where a male stripper (played by Brian Kerwin) tosses his pants to Captain Stubing (at the 2:20 mark)? At the 2:40 mark, the captain actually sniffs them.

He was happy, but often bitter.

I don’t think Gavin MacLeod was gay.

He’s a great, very game guest on Gilbert Gottfried’s podcast. When Bernie Kopell (Doc Bricker) joins in, it gets really funny, and you can tell that MacLeod came up with old-school Jewish comics. They riff on each other like it’s the 1950s and it’s kind of delightful.

He makes reference to being Christian during the show, but doesn’t dwell on it.

There’s no gay sensibility to the appearance, however, even when he recreates his infamous Big Chicken character from Hawaii 5-0.

I tried to find the prison shower scene, but alas, I failed.

Here’s a piece discussing the Big Chicken character.

Murray would NEVER have named been gay in 1970, or anytime in the 70s. He would only be an unmarried funny guy in the office wink wink.

R15 I thought you were joking but he actually did take a whiff of the male strippers pants. That was hilarious!

Gavin MacLeod in a 1965 episode of "My Favorite Martian". Go to 3:00 of the video. He shows up again at 5:28.

Obviously wearing a toupée.

Very "Murray Slaughter" here.

He really takes over in his scenes. A confident, animated performance, just right for this show.

R10 I've never asked this question before. Are YOU mentally ill?

Thanks for the clip, r15.

Brian Kerwin can STILL get it.

I thought he seemed gay on The Love Boat, too

The WORST episodes of MTM were the ones that focused on Murray and some dumb problem he had....total waste of 30 minutes or so.

Things straight men don't do:

1- Randomly kiss another man on the cheek during an interview (see clip below at 0:42)

2-Play a straight character as gay.

3-Play a straight character as a gay man would and not as a straight man would. Straight men who play gay are always too flamboyant.

4-Play another straight character (The Love Boat) as slightly less gay, but still gay.

5-Be described by friends and colleagues as "delightful."

[quote]5-Be described by friends and colleagues as "delightful."

Ding ding ding!

^^ 3- Play a straight character as gay the way a gay man would and not as a straight man would.^^

He seemed gay, albeit restrained, when he was in the supporting cast on "McHale's Navy." He left the show after two seasons.

I wonder how/if Mary was able to absorb the nuances. She seemed somewhat detached (or ill, drunk?) from the workings of the MTM program. Husband Grant Tinker was the brain behind it, not Mary.

Many years later she addressed the fact that the Lou Grant character was not popular at first. She said it was because Grant was Jewish (that’s loaded enough right there), BUT - Ed Asner was Jewish, Lou Grant was definitely NOT.

MacLoad?

He became super religious in the 80s when he and his wife almost divorced because of his alcoholism. I think he wrote in his book about praying with Ted knight on his deathbed. Knight was an ardent atheist.

I always thought the gay actor from 'Airplane!' did an incredible imitation of him.

[quote]MacLoad?

Real name: Allan George See

r9 Maybe you and he went out cruising for some good pussy when he guest-starred on "Perry Mason.

I've always thought this - and as someone above mentioned, I do believe he was closeted.

The alcoholism in his 50s could have been part of that - but he couldn't come out during the 80s - and it was an awful time because of AIDS crisis.

There are a lot of married 'straight' men who were gay of that and previous generations. Hell, there STILL are today - but label themselves as 'bi'.

Homophobia and anti-gay sentiment was SO strong - and being gay was technically illegal until he was almost 40.

We have a hard time wrapping our heads around how anti-gay the world was for previous generations. I still remember a lot of it from the 80s and 90s and 2000s.

Things have gotten so much better in the last 15 years, it's mind-boggling.

The very hot young James Sikking got me all distracted in that clip at r21.

And yes, poor dear Brian Kerwin. WHET?

R14. Did Joyce Bulifant know?

He always struck me as gay and I thought his extreme Christian posturing was a result of guilt.

What kind of stupid name is Murray Slaughter?

Murray Slaughter the straight homosexual. What a strange character.

R39 - or a cover.

Whenever someone goes overboard with religion mid-life, there are some demons they're making up for or trying to cover up. Alcoholism was the tip of the iceberg I think.

He made great $$$ on The Love Boat - I'm sure he could afford rent men. He made $1.4 million in 1985 on Love Boat - FORTY years ago. That's 4.7 million today. And things were a lot cheaper then.

He had FOUR children with his first wife - a former Rockette. Sure doesn’t sound closeted.

R35, perhaps. But I usually went for hot, well-built, masculine men. You know, men like me.

Not for sex. I was straight. But for help with the swimming pool and massages after I worked out.

Well, he went to Ithaca College, so he might as well have been gay, whether he was or not.

Yes, the Murray character on MTM was conceived as gay. James L. Brooks based him on a gay co-worker who kept ice skates in his desk drawer to hit the rink on lunch breaks. Murray was to be established as Mary's co-worker, then his gayness would be introduced.

Unsurprisingly, the network said no way, and suddenly Murray had a wife after the pilot.

It's possible MacLeod created Murray as a bit of a queen. The writing sure made him crypto-gay: His bitchy insults of Ted and Sue Ann and certain storylines (doing Calorie Counters with Rhoda) weren't the butchest.

Well, Ted Knight wasn't exactly macho either.

He wore a very obvious wig in The Party.

He was gay. Closeted sometimes. He and his longtime wife divorced and then they both became born-agains and remarried and did the Christian talk show circuit.

I gather the second wife, Patti, was the homely thing he appeared on Tattletales. Car-face.

Celebrity gays in the 1970s were just thought of and discussed as being artistic, OP.

[Quote] Murray would NEVER have named been gay in 1970, or anytime in the 70s. He would only be an unmarried funny guy in the office wink wink.

Surely all you people talking about Murray realize that this thread is about whether MacLeod was gay, not whether the character Murray was.

Relevant to that discussion is that MacLeod's performance as Murray was queeny, R51. Or, as OP wrote, "played as a flaming homo from space."

Was it the real MacLeod shining through? Not necessarily, considering the original intent of the Murray character and the bitchy lines/diva antics assigned to him thereafter.

sniff

For comparison, this clip from SNL:

I first remember watching Gavin on McHales Navy in which he played one of the sad sacks of Ernie (McHale) Borgnine's platoon (or whatever it was called). Even as a gayling, I though he was kind of a hot bald daddy type but, of course, my eyes were always riveted on the shirtless Edson Stroll and the cute blonde Gary Vinson.

In any case, I don't think Gavin gave off any gay vibes on that series.

I remember asking him if his hot wife had an unmarried sister!

R49, if you haven’t noticed, Gavin was a fat FUG too.

Yea I saw him once with Pat Robertson on the 700 Club during The Love Boat...just clicking through but I stopped for a few minutes.

It was a shock....he's not in the video on this page, but the story is about him.

Was he a CCC (Christian Closet Case)?

I always thought he was Jewish:

"Gavin MacLeod was born Allen George See on February 28, 1931, in Mount Kisco, New York. His mother, Margaret (née Shea) See (1906–2004), a middle school dropout, worked for Reader's Digest. His father, George See (1906–1945), an electrician, was part Chippewa (Ojibwe)"

I always assumed the name Murray Slaughter was chosen to suggest the character was Jewish.

Just because he became a born again christian doesn't mean he WASN'T Jewish.

R42 You do understand that you can be a closeted gay person and still have heterosexual sex/relationships and, gasp, even children, right?

Duh, R63. But Gavin somehow snagged a ROCKETTE, and had not one, but several children with her.

One of my closeted relatives has FIVE children.

Doesn't Ted Haggard have like 5 or 6 kids?

He never pinged to me.

Gavin was pretty over the top in every thing he did before Murray.

He was an awful actor. He just Was Murray. His mannerisms as Stubing were laughable.

How DID he have a career?

Did they add little Vicki to make him seem more masculine?

Liked him as Murray, but not as the captain of the Love Boat. He seemed to be giving a "performance".

One of those actors who got very lucky or knew the right people, or something.

He was relatable!

He was bitchy on MTM and that made him fun, sort of James Coco-ish. Plus he was a tad bearish (not Asner-ian bearish) which I liked. In Love Boat he was very meh.

Joe Flaherty is hilarious as Gavin McLeod in this old SCTV clip. The main focus is on Andrea Martin as DL fave Linda Lavin, but Gavin McLeod enters the scene at the 2:10 mark. ("Everyone's talking to me. I'm really surprised.")

R14- He was a BIG fag on the show. He had a HUGE non sexual crush on Mary.

Who could have played Captain Steubing better? The crew of the Pacific Princess would have found Amy Bradley that morning and killed Yellow with one of Charo's flamenco guitar strings.

His delivery on MTM was shit. His supposed wit was delivered with the heavy handed sarcasm of somebody who had just been in a terrible car accident.