Gavin MacLeod was an American actor best known for his roles as news writer Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and ship's captain Merrill Stubing on ABC's The Love Boat. After growing up Catholic, MacLeod became an evangelical Christian in 1984. His career, which spanned six decades, included work as a Christian television host, author, and guest on several talk, variety, and religious programs.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns and starring actress Mary Tyler Moore. The show originally aired on CBS from September 19, 1970, to March 19, 1977. Moore portrayed Mary Richards, an unmarried, independent woman focused on her career as associate producer of a news show at the fictional local station WJM in Minneapolis. Ed Asner co-starred as Mary's boss Lou Grant, alongside Gavin MacLeod, Ted Knight, Georgia Engel, Betty White, Valerie Harper as friend and neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern, and Cloris Leachman as friend and landlady Phyllis Lindstrom.