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    Douglas Cramer, Producer of TV Hits and Art Aficionado, Dies at 89

    He had a hand in some of the biggest shows of the 20th century, including “Dynasty” and “The Love Boat.”Douglas S. Cramer, who produced some of the most successful television shows of the 20th century, many — including “The Love Boat” and “Dynasty” — in partnership with Aaron Spelling, and who used his substantial wealth to become a leading art collector, died on Friday at his home on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. He was 89.His husband, Hubert Bush, said the cause was kidney failure.Mr. Cramer had a long career in television, producing or helping to develop shows including “Peyton Place” in the 1960s, “The Odd Couple” in the 1970s and “Hotel” in the 1980s. In the 1990s he produced a string of television movies based on novels by Danielle Steel.Today, television producing credits are handed out for a variety of reasons, and those given them often have little direct involvement in the show. But in Mr. Cramer’s day the producer was often more like a film director, shaping the cast and look of a series.“I was very hands-on,” he said in an oral history recorded in 2009 for the Television Academy Foundation. “There was nothing I wasn’t involved with. I worried about every performer, every extra, every piece of clothing.”Mr. Cramer joined forces with Mr. Spelling, the most prolific American television producer of the era, in the mid-1970s. “The Love Boat,” which they produced jointly, ran for 250 episodes beginning in 1977 and had a vast, eclectic list of guest stars that reflected Mr. Cramer’s connections and interests — Andy Warhol turned up in a 1985 episode, playing himself.Mr. Cramer, left, in 1984 with his longtime producing partner Aaron Spelling, center, and their fellow producer E. Duke Vincent.Gene Trindl/MPTV ImagesIf that series was a cultural reference point, “Dynasty” was the type of show that helps define a decade. A prime-time soap opera about a rich oil family, the Carrington clan — Blake (John Forsythe), Krystle (Linda Evans), Alexis (Joan Collins) and others — the show ran from 1981 to 1989. It gave a campy gloss to the decade while also occasionally managing to be groundbreaking: It had a prominent gay character and a prominent Black character, both still rare at the time.“We walk a fine line, just this side of camp,” Mr. Cramer told New York magazine in 1985. “Careful calculations are made. We sense that while it might be wonderful for Krystle and Alexis to have a catfight in a koi pond, it would be inappropriate for Joan to smack Linda with a koi.”That series and others, Mr. Spelling, who died in 2006, told The New York Times in 1993, benefited from the distinctive Cramer touch.“Douglas is a very creative man,” he said. “He has immaculate taste in art direction and wardrobe.”He also had immaculate taste in art. He amassed a collection that included both known names and up-and-coming talents, and he made significant gifts to museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, whose director, Glenn D. Lowry cited Mr. Cramer’s donation of “a superb group of paintings and sculptures by Ellsworth Kelly, among others.”Steve Martin, a fellow art aficionado, recalled gatherings at a ranch Mr. Cramer owned in Santa Ynez, Calif.“He would host a yearly ‘hoedown,’ with hay rides, buffets, inviting Hollywood’s and the art world’s glitterati,” Mr. Martin said by email. “One year, the hoedown centered around the opening of his gigantic, multilevel private museum, stuffed with Lichtenstein, Baselitz (as I recall), Ruscha (as I recall), and dozens of other important artists. All the high-level art mingled with guys and gals dressed in gingham and cowboy hats.”“The Love Boat” had a vast, eclectic list of guest stars that reflected Mr. Cramer’s connections and interests. Andy Warhol turned up in a 1985 episode, playing himself.Walt Disney Television, via Getty ImagesDouglas Schoolfield Cramer Jr. was born on Aug. 22, 1931, in Louisville, Ky. His father was a businessman, and his mother, Pauline (Compton) Cramer, was an interior designer who, after the family moved to Cincinnati when Doug was a boy, started writing a newspaper column, “Polly’s Pointers,” full of home decorating and other tips. She and his grandmother, who owned an antiques shop and would take him on buying trips, “opened my eyes to looking at what was around me,” Mr. Cramer said in the oral history, “which I think had a lot of impact on me as a producer.”Those buying trips with Grandma also spawned his interest in collecting, something he began doing as a child.“I started to collect saltshakers for some bizarre reason,” he told The Courier-Journal of Louisville in 2003. “From saltshakers it went to postcards. I had an enormous collection of postcards of art and posters.”He also developed an early fascination with the theater and New York City. After six months at Northwestern University in Illinois, he left college at 18 and went to live in New York, securing a job as a production assistant at Radio City Music Hall.The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 led him to conclude that “I’d rather be at the University of Cincinnati than fighting in Korea,” as he put it in the oral history; he eventually earned an English degree there.He returned to New York as a graduate student at Columbia University, obtaining a master’s degree and also making a start on a career as a playwright; his drama “Call of Duty” was staged at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village in 1956. The play had a decent run, but his main takeaway from the experience, he said, was the realization that “I really hadn’t lived enough to have anything to write about.”Though the Korean War was over, he was eventually drafted into the Army, spending six months working in communications. He managed a summer playhouse in Cincinnati for several seasons, at the same time teaching at what is now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.From left, Joan Collins, John Forsythe and Linda Evans in an episode of “Dynasty,” one of the most successful shows with which Mr. Cramer was involved. “We walk a fine line,” he said of “Dynasty,” “just this side of camp.”ABC Photo ArchivesIn the late 1950s and early ’60s, sponsors were particularly influential in television, and Procter & Gamble, headquartered in Cincinnati, was one of the biggest players. Hoping to work his way into the television business, Mr. Cramer went to work there as a supervisor on two of its daytime shows, “As the World Turns” and “The Guiding Light.”After several years there he moved to New York, where in the early 1960s he took a job at ABC. As director of programing planning there, he helped develop “Peyton Place” into a hit series and also was involved in bringing “Batman” to the small screen in 1966.At ABC and throughout his career, Mr. Cramer crossed paths with future Hollywood titans. One was Barry Diller, who would later lead Paramount and 20th Century Fox.“I met Doug Cramer in the parking lot of the Bel Air Hotel as I was leaving my job interview with his boss at ABC,” Mr. Diller said by email. “He gave me the ticket to retrieve his car, thinking I was the parking attendant, and I’ve greatly admired him ever since.”From ABC Mr. Cramer moved to 20th Century Fox, and then to Paramount. There, as executive vice president in charge of production, he had overall authority over its many series, including “Love American Style,” “The Brady Bunch” and “The Odd Couple.” He soon formed his own production company, and in 1974 he produced “QB VII,” based on the Leon Uris novel, a star-studded production often identified as network television’s first mini-series. It won six Emmy Awards.After his run with Mr. Spelling, Mr. Cramer formed a different kind of partnership with Ms. Steel, beginning in 1990 with a TV movie version of her “Kaleidoscope.”“The time that I spent working with Doug Cramer on 21 TV movies and mini-series based on my books,” Ms. Steel said by email, “are among the happiest memories of my career, with fantastic results.”Mr. Cramer’s marriage to the gossip columnist Joyce Haber ended in divorce in the 1970s. A daughter, Courtney, died in 2004, and a son, Douglas III, died in 2015. Mr. Cramer began his relationship with Mr. Bush in 1991, and they married in 2006. A brother, Peyton, also survives him.Mr. Bush said that one of Mr. Cramer’s proudest accomplishments was that quirky casting on “The Love Boat.” In addition to working Warhol into an episode, he would sometimes engineer theme episodes, including one that featured designers like Bob Mackie and Halston. It was a chance, Mr. Bush said, to give Middle America, which loved the show, a look at people they might not otherwise see.“Doug made that accessible to America,” Mr. Bush said. “I think that was important.” More

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    Gavin MacLeod, ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ and ‘Love Boat’ Actor, Dies at 90

    After years as a journeyman with a long list of credits but little name recognition, he found stardom on two of the biggest television hits of the 1970s and ’80s.Gavin MacLeod, who tasted stardom after years as a journeyman actor when he landed roles on two of the most successful television series of the 1970s and ’80s — as the news writer Murray Slaughter on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Capt. Merrill Stubing on “The Love Boat” — died on Saturday at his home in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 90. His nephew Mark See confirmed the death. He said that the cause was unknown, but that Mr. MacLeod had recently had health issues.When Mr. MacLeod was invited to audition for the pilot of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in 1970, he was almost 40, a recovering alcoholic and still looking for a breakthrough role after more than a dozen years as a working actor with a string of modest stage, film and television credits — notably on the sitcom “McHale’s Navy” — but little name recognition.The audition was for the role of Lou Grant, the gruff newsroom boss of Ms. Moore’s character, Mary Richards, a sweet-natured associate news producer at a fictional Minneapolis television station. But Mr. MacLeod asked instead if he could read for the more understated role of Murray, saying he felt more comfortable playing Mary’s co-worker than her superior. (The role of Lou Grant went to Ed Asner.)“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” ran from 1970 to 1977 and became one of the most acclaimed comedies in television history, winning Emmys and a devoted audience, not least because it centered on a young, single professional woman — still an adventurous premise at the time — and offered quick-witted comedy with generous doses of the real world, addressing serious topics like drug use, homosexuality, women’s rights and premarital sex.As Murray, the balding, humble head writer and Mary’s office best friend, Mr. MacLeod was given to firing zingers at the show’s other regulars, especially the pompously vain anchorman, Ted Baxter (Ted Knight, a longtime friend of Mr. MacLeod’s). He saw Murray as an Everyman character.Mr. MacLeod, right, played a humble TV news writer and Ed Asner played his gruff boss on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”Photofest“Murray represented all the brown-baggers — not just in newsrooms, but in all sorts of professions,” he wrote in his autobiography “This Is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith and Life” (2013). “People felt they knew me.”Just weeks after “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” finished filming its final episode, Mr. MacLeod was offered the lead role of Captain Stubing on “The Love Boat.” That show was a hit as well, running from 1977 to 1986.Mr. MacLeod and other cast members from “The Love Boat” received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018. From left: Fred Grandy, Ted Lange, Jill Whelan, Mr. MacLeod, Cynthia Lauren Tewes and Bernie Kopell.Mike Nelson/EPA, via Shutterstock“The Love Boat,” which revolved around Mr. MacLeod’s affable white-suited captain and a crew of regulars, ventured into new television territory by offering simultaneous plot lines in each episode, all having to do with the humorous, and amorous, adventures of the cruise ship’s passengers, played by guest stars. (Mr. MacLeod later became a pitchman for Princess Cruises.) But unlike “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which was acclaimed for its writing and its willingness to defy the sanitized conventions of situation comedy, “The Love Boat,” produced by Aaron Spelling, was vilified by critics as just another example of safe, formulaic TV comedy. Mr. MacLeod defended the show. “I don’t care if it reflects life or not,” he said. “I love happy endings. Life’s so heavy these days that people want to escape.”Gavin MacLeod, the older of two children, was born Allan George See on Feb. 28, 1931, in Mount Kisco, N.Y. His family later moved to nearby Pleasantville. His father, George, was an electrician who died of cancer in 1945; his mother, Margaret (Shea) See, had worked for Reader’s Digest.Allan graduated from Pleasantville High School in 1947 and received a scholarship to Ithaca College, in upstate New York, graduating in 1952 with a degree in drama.After a stint in the Air Force, he moved to New York City to look for acting jobs, working at first as an usher and an elevator operator at Radio City Music Hall, where he met Joan Rootvik, a Rockette. They married and went on to have four children before divorcing in 1972.In the early 1950s he adopted his stage name in remembrance of Beatrice MacLeod, his drama teacher at Ithaca. He chose the first name Gavin after a character in an episode of the anthology television series “Climax.”After finding some stage work, Mr. MacLeod made his television debut as a guest star on “The Walter Winchell Files,” a crime drama. His first credited movie role was a small part as a police lieutenant in “I Want to Live!,” a 1958 drama with Susan Hayward as a woman facing the death penalty. In 1959 he appeared in the Korean War film “Pork Chop Hill” and Blake Edwards’s naval comedy “Operation Petticoat.”By the 1960s Mr. MacLeod was appearing regularly on television series, with guest-starring roles on “Perry Mason,” “Combat!,” “Death Valley Days,” “Dr. Kildare,” “The Untouchables” and other shows. His part on “McHale’s Navy,” which starred Ernest Borgnine, was his first job as a series regular. His character, Seaman Joseph Haines, one of a crew of misfits aboard a World War II PT boat, was known as Happy. But Mr. MacLeod, feeling underused, was anything but.“I had, like, two lines a week,” Mr. MacLeod said in a videotaped interview for the Archive of American Television. “I started feeling sorry for myself; I started drinking. I felt that as an actor I was just going down the tubes.”As he told the story, one night he was driving, while drunk, on Mulholland Drive in the hills above Los Angeles when he impulsively decided to kill himself by driving off the road. But he stopped himself, jamming on the brakes at the last moment. Shaken, he recalled, he made his way to the nearby house of a friend, the actor Robert Blake, who persuaded him to see a psychiatrist.He quit “McHale’s Navy” in 1964, after two seasons, and began finding more satisfying parts, including a supporting one in the 1966 film “The Sand Pebbles” with Steve McQueen.After his divorce, Mr. MacLeod married Patti Kendig, a dancer, in 1974. They also divorced, in early 1982, but remarried each other in 1985, by which time they had both become born-again Christians. Mr. MacLeod documented their story, as well as his decades-long struggle with alcoholism, in a 1987 book, “Back on Course: The Remarkable Story of a Divorce That Ended in Remarriage.”In addition to his wife, Mr. MacLeod is survived by two sons, Keith and David; two daughters, Meaghan MacLeod Launier and Julie MacLeod Ruffino; 10 grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and a brother, Ron See.Mr. MacLeod became active in religious-oriented entertainment, hosting programs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and starring in Christian-themed films like “Time Changer” (2002) and “The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry” (2008).His later television work also included guest-starring roles on “The King of Queens,” “Jag,” “Touched by an Angel” and “Oz,” the HBO prison drama. In 2010, according to his autobiography, Mr. MacLeod quit television in the middle of an audition for an episode of “Cold Case” and returned to what he said was his greatest professional love: theater. He did do some television work after that, but most of his work for the rest of his life was in stage productions in the Los Angeles area.William McDonald and Jesus Jimenez contributed reporting. More