This Is Your Captain Speaking: My Fantastic Voyage Through Hollywood, Faith & Life

by MacLeod, Gavin

  The opportunities just kept coming.

  24

  NEW CALLINGS

  THEY SAY GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS, AND he certainly started to work through Patti and me in some surprising ways after we rekindled our marriage.

  Word of our remarriage spread far and wide in the Christian world. The fact that we were brought together through Jesus was seen as an inspiration, and some very powerful people and organizations wanted us to share our story with the world.

  On top of everything else that was happening as The Love Boat ended in 1986, Patti and I were approached about doing a book. We were excited! We thought the title should be, I’m Sorry Your Dinner’s Cold. It’s Been Waiting for Three Years. Obviously that’s too long for the title of a book, so we agreed on another title: Back on Course.

  We worked with a gifted writer, Marie Chapian, who gathered the story of our lives, and broke the story of our relationship into two parts: the first from my perspective, the second from Patti’s. It told of our courtship and our breakup, and then at the end, it described how Jesus brought us together in a marriage that was stronger than either of us had ever imagined.

  The book didn’t sell nearly as well as we’d hoped. Not enough publicity. It was a tough lesson for the two of us. From here on out, when it came to our faith and our relationship, Patti and I would need to be careful to surround ourselves with people who not only wanted to share our story but would promote us in the best way possible.

  Paul Crouch was one of those people. The man who had cofounded the Trinity Broadcasting Network with his wife, Jan, approached us around that very same time and asked if we’d like to host our own TV show. Trinity Broadcasting was a rapidly growing Christian television network that broadcast all over the world. It had, and still has, millions of viewers. In fact, it’s known as the “world’s largest faith channel.”

  The idea of hosting a show together, based on our own personal experience and sharing the experience of others who have overcome challenges in their lives and marriages, sounded wonderful. So Patti and I said yes!

  We all decided the title of our book would make for a perfect title for our show too: Back on Course. And what a course we set: our little show would stay on the air for the next seventeen years.

  We were new Christians and didn’t know a lot of people in the Christian industry, but the Crouches thought we were the perfect couple to anchor this show. For one, people knew who I was, because to millions of people I was and always would be the Captain. But they also loved our story—that Patti and I had been married, divorced, saved by Jesus, and then married again.

  Our show was about more than marriage, though. It was about the extraordinary troubles that individuals and couples alike had overcome in life with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was basically a half-hour interview show: we (along with the producers) would find people with extraordinary stories and messages to share, and then Patti and I would interview them on-air and help them share those stories with the world.

  We started out shooting that show at the TBN studios in Orange County, California, and our first guests were Pastor Jack and Anna Hayford from The Church on the Way. I talk about Pastor Jack a lot, because he’s been such a positive influence in our lives. In some ways, outside of the Catholic world, Jack Hayford is like the pope. He is beyond reproach. Everyone goes to him for approval. It’s no exaggeration to say that he reaches millions of people. Not a bad first guest!

  The show also worked on a manageable schedule. We would shoot ten or twelve episodes, back to back over a number of days, and then be done for a while. It gave us plenty of time for all of the other callings in our lives—especially the theater, since Patti and I would continue acting, singing, and dancing from coast to coast. It also meant we could keep our primary home on Cape Cod, and fly in to California for short periods to work on the show.

  We taped inside that studio for the better part of a decade, until Jan said, “I think you should go do it on a boat.” Aha! Put the Captain on a boat! I liked that idea. So did our guests. Knowing they would get a fun boat ride out of it, guests flocked to our show in its last few years. The visual canvas opened up, too, and made for some beautiful television. Who else has ever set a talk show on the water?

  The boat was in the harbor at beautiful Newport Beach. We’d go out and cruise around, and pass John Wayne’s house four times a day.

  For those who haven’t seen the show, it basically went like this: You would hear the theme music and the announcer would introduce us, “Patti and Gavin MacLeod!” Then we’d say, “Hello. How are you? It’s great to see you again.” We were already seated on the ship, and we’d say, “Our guests today are so-and-so and so-and-so, who have finally been reunited.” We’d tell you a little bit about their story, that they were married fifty years ago and something happened and he ran away, or she ran away, or whatever the tale may be, and then the guests would walk up the gangway and onto the boat. From there, they were the ones who told their stories. All we did was interview them a little bit to coax them along. The whole thing was shot as close to real time as possible, and it was only a half hour long. We’d stop once for a commercial they’d put in there. Then we’d wrap it up, the guests would go down to the bottom of the ship, and the next guest or guests would come up and we’d start taping the next show.

  Jay Jones was our producer, and he and his wife, Marilee, are our dear friends to this day.

  The show was easy. And guess what? Sometimes, that’s exactly what the best things in life are: easy. Simple. Not everything has to be a struggle.

  Patti and I met some inspiring people on that show—people who had been through everything you could imagine. There was a guy who had left his wife to live a homosexual lifestyle—and he talked about how his whole life had changed when he gave his life to Jesus. The desires he had disappeared, and his wife took him back, and they started a whole new ministry.

  A former Miss America came on too: Cheryl Prewitt, whom I voted for when I judged the Miss America competition in 1980! In her case, she had been born with one leg shorter than the other. And she told us about the time that someone took her to Kenneth Hagin Ministries down in Oklahoma, and he prayed over her, and—believe it or not—she actually saw her leg grow.

  She was a wonderful, inspirational individual. I remember lobbying for her with the other judges. There was something special about her. During the talent competition, she sang, and her microphone went out, but she kept right on going. She didn’t let it throw her. I thought, Wow, she’s got something! Little did I know, she had the spirit of Christ in her. The same spirit I would discover for myself four years later, and then discover in her when she and her husband came on our show. In addition to the miraculous story of her leg, Cheryl and her husband talked about losing their daughter, which had been incredibly difficult for them. It was quite an emotional show.

  On a side note: her husband’s sister married Oral Roberts’s son, Richard. There was a birthday party some years ago thrown by our mutual friend Samantha Landy, and only a handful of people were invited. I was able to reacquaint with Oral and his wife, Evelyn, whom I had met once before. Patti and I took a picture with them. It’s one of my treasures. It was quite a night being in his presence, especially knowing his backstory and what he overcame. The people I’ve been in the presence of is just incredible to me sometimes.

  Anyway, my point is, our show wasn’t always about the relationship angle. It was about how you could deal with the death of a child or anything else that could happen to one or two people. Drugs were a big topic. A good number of our guests became pastors of enormous churches because of the drug scene.

  Any kind of problem that might exist between two people we talked about on that program. Lack of communication, for example. Dean Jones came on with his wife, Lory, and they started to have an argument right in front of us—on camera! It turns out it was all planned. They came out of it and said, “This is what you don’t want to do.” They were
great teachers.

  Our guests weren’t all actors, models, and well-known pastors. There were many guests we had never heard of before our producers brought them to our attention. People who travel the country as evangelists would come in and talk about adapting to life on the road. We met couples who shared stories about having problems with their children, or problems with in-laws accepting that one or both of them had become born again. Dealing with the fact that some people don’t want to talk to you or accept you once you become born again was certainly a hot topic. But we talked about all sorts of things.

  Mostly, our show was about how people’s lives had changed: where they were before, where they were now, and how faith in the Lord had changed their lives.

  The show was a big success. A lot of pastors and their wives advised us to start our own ministry. Patti and I were already on TV, reaching an audience, traveling to churches, and talking to people all over the country about the way our lives had been enriched and made complete through Christ. So in some ways, Patti and I already had our own ministry! We just never made it official. We never became a 501(c)(3) organization so we could claim exemptions on our taxes, or collect donations, or give ourselves salaries or any of those things. There are all kinds of write-offs we could have claimed as ministers—and every once in a while when Patti gets concerned about money issues (as happens in just about every marriage), she’ll say, “Well, maybe we should have done it!” But finding tax exemptions and write-offs was not the reason to get into it for us. Sometimes, I’m afraid that the money issues in certain ministries muddy the water of what it’s really all about.

  The fact is, we have a ministry. We had viewers all over the world, and now everywhere we go there are certain people who know us from that show. We touched a lot of lives. Patti and I were becoming ambassadors for Christ, in a big way!

  I’m not saying this to be boastful. It just goes back to what the apostle Paul says in the Bible: once you become born again, you become an ambassador for Christ. As years went by, I grew more comfortable with that role of “ambassador” in every facet of my existence.

  Earlier I mentioned that once you become a celebrity, your whole life becomes part of the act. I didn’t like that act very much, because it involved a lot of showing off—showing up with prearranged celebrity “dates” on your arm, and the intrusion of the press into your family life. Well, serving as an ambassador for Christ is similar in that your whole life definitely becomes part of the act—but that’s the only similarity. With Christ, it’s no act! It’s all truth! And I love it. Your belief and your gratitude and your grace are all tied together with the life you lead, in every moment.

  I’ve been an ambassador for Princess Cruises, but the most important thing I’ve ever done is to become an ambassador for Christ. And I will always remain his ambassador.

  The well-known evangelist Joyce Meyer says, “Sometimes, the only Bible people will read is watching you.” So you have to be aware of what you’re doing. You have to believe in what you’re doing and to try to help people. You may lose your temper in the moment sometimes, and people may say, “What’s going on? He calls himself a Christian?” People are watching you all the time once you profess your belief. Well, let me tell you, when you combine that belief with fame, it gets pretty interesting. You’re watched twice as closely! I have a lot of eyes on me wherever I go, but that’s not a burden to me. That’s a gift. An incredible gift! I try to own up to that. I try to be the best ambassador for Christ I can be.

  In the early 2000s, after our run on TBN ended and after I came off the road from Copacabana, Patti and I sold our house on Cape Cod and set up our home base in Pacific Palisades—in the same gorgeous area where Ted Knight had found his dream home.

  I loved it there. So much so that I became the honorary mayor of Pacific Palisades. I hosted parades, spoke for the community, and dedicated my time to that tony town as best I could.

  Patti and I started spending more and more time in Palm Springs as well. It was easy to commute back and forth between the hustle and bustle of LA and the relative quiet of that desert oasis. We enjoyed that. And settling down on one coast meant we could spend more time together, simply “walking the walk,” as people say.

  Patti and I had touched so many lives with our TV show, and we continued to touch so many people through our faith even while juggling my duties for Princess with my theater work and occasional guest roles on TV shows. I thought I was doing pretty well!

  I wasn’t fully aware yet of the power I could have as an ambassador for Christ. I didn’t realize that I had one more step to take to bring all of my talents—and maybe my whole life’s journey—together in the name of Jesus.

  25

  NOT SO GRACEFULLY

  GETTING OLDER IS NO PICNIC, LET ME TELL YOU. I’ve tried to approach the closing doors of old age the same way I’ve faced all the other closing doors in my life: always knowing that another one’s about to open.

  The thing is, the best way to get through all of this stuff is to laugh! You get old, and stuff stops working. As I’ve stated, I’ve been through a couple of heart attacks and a quintuple bypass. I have stents in the arteries in my legs just to keep the blood flowing. When I lived in Pacific Palisades, I suffered an infection in my spine that nearly paralyzed me for life. I had to skip out on a big TV Land salute to The Love Boat because I was laid up with a horrible, nearly permanent back injury.

  But you know what? I’m still walking. And all I can say is, “That’s great!”

  Every morning I thank God for my waking up. I thank God for the ability to get up. I thank God for the day, and I thank God for my life—each and every morning.

  Without him, this ship called MacLeod would have sunk a long time ago.

  I could have died from that first heart attack, or the second one. Four stents for my circulation, a thing in the left atria of my heart that’s there to prevent me from having a stroke, my second eye will have to undergo a cataract operation soon . . .

  When you get older it’s “patch, patch, patch.” You just try to keep this vessel of a body from sinking!

  For heaven’s sake, don’t ever ask an eighty-year-old man how he’s doing. He’ll talk your ear off with every medical malady under the sun! I won’t do that here. (Or have I done that already? I’m sorry!)

  What I hope is that through the example of my life, and the fact that I’m still going strong at eighty-two as I write this book, maybe I’ll take away some of the fear of getting older. It really is a fascinating part of life’s journey. You think you know everything when you’re a teenager, but you don’t. You think you’ve got it under control in your twenties, but you don’t! By forty, you feel all full of yourself, as if you know what you’re doing. Guess what? You don’t! You just keep learning, and hopefully you just keep getting better at this thing called life.

  When it comes to death? It’s all okay when you know what’s coming next.

  And I’m not just talking about where your body’s going to be lying—although there’s a funny story in that.

  Remember back on that fateful morning in 1984, when I prayed to Christ to give my mother more time? Boy, did he ever listen. He gave my mother nearly twenty more years on this earth. We found her a beautiful assisted-living home in the Palm Springs area, so my brother and I were both able to be close to her and to spend time with her, through her very last days.

  When my mother finally passed away, my brother and I went down to Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cathedral City. We wanted to ship her body back to New York so she could be buried with my father, and in order to do that we had to pick out a casket. I tell you, when you first go into a room full of caskets, it’s kind of morbid—but like anything else, you stay there for a few minutes and it’s okay. You can touch the caskets, and they get less scary, and you just get used to it. So we picked out one for mom, and then I got curious. I saw this wall on the inside of the building, a sort of mausoleum. I said, “I like this wall.”

&nb
sp; Looking up, I saw the final resting place of Dinah Shore, and all of these other people I had worked with. So I asked the cemetery guy, “If I wanted to get into this wall over here after I die, what’s the story on that?”

  He handed me a brochure. “I’ll tell you what’s available, because some are already gone. You know John Phillips? Of the Mamas and the Papas? That’s him,” he said, pointing to one of the blank slots. “His name isn’t on it yet.”

  It was strange, but fascinating. “Now, you could be next to John Phillips, or on top of John Phillips. It depends on the price,” the man said.

  I said, “What’s the difference?”

  He said, “It costs more, the higher up.”

  “The closer to heaven, you charge more? This is interesting,” I said. “Well, how much to be next to John Phillips?” It was like eight thousand dollars for that little rectangular slot in the wall. It’s California real estate—it’s pricey!

  I went home to Patti and said, “How would you like to spend eternity next to John Phillips?” and she said, “Can’t you get me a bigger name?”

  Long story short: We got it. I own it. Patti and I are going to be buried right there next to John Phillips.

  And I did mention it’s California real estate, right? No joke. A decade later someone offered me sixteen thousand dollars for that spot. I declined, but it’s nice to know I made a good investment.

  It’s funny, I wound up sitting next to Mackenzie Phillips—John Phillips’s daughter—on a plane to New York for the seventy-fifth anniversary party of CBS in 2003. I told her I would be spending eternity next to her father. I think she thought I was nuts.

  This is as good a place as any to talk about that seventy-fifth anniversary party, though. Such an extraordinary event, to see so many great stars and great friends together in one evening!