Alan Hale Jr.'s Final TV Role Was In A Short-Lived Murder, She Wrote Spin-Off

Alan Hale Jr. might have struggled with typecasting after playing Captain Jonas Grumby, aka The Skipper, on "Gilligan's Island." But you can never say a career that involved collaborations with everyone from John Wayne to Kirk Douglas was unsuccessful. In fact, Hale Jr. had an enviable Hollywood career, even if he mostly remained a journeyman character actor outside of his excursion to Gilligan's Isle. By the time he came to what was his final TV performance on a short-lived "Murder, She Wrote" spin-off — "The Law & Harry McGraw" — he was surely unbothered by the relatively low-profile nature of the gig.

After "Gilligan's Island," Hale Jr. guest-starred on multiple hit series, including long-running Western "The Virginian," the Adam West-led "Batman," in which he played a character named Gilligan, and "The Wild Wild West" before it was canceled to appease Congress. He also showed up on an episode of one of the best mystery shows of the 1980s: "Murder, She Wrote." 1986's "Trial by Error," saw Hale Jr. in a brief cameo as motel owner Fenton Harris. It was hardly a surprise to see him in the long-running crime drama, if only because was on the air for 12 seasons between 1984 and 1996 and during that time hosted every guest star imaginable. Bryan Cranston, Courteney Cox, George Clooney, and even Adam West all appeared on the series to name just a few of its esteemed guest stars. If you were an actor on the TV circuit in the 80s and 90s, you were probably going to end up on "Murder, She Wrote."

So it was that Hale Jr. found himself on the show. But unlike those future megastars who all had brief run-ins with Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher, Hale Jr. would return for the much less successful spin-off.

There have been some pretty poor spin-offs in the history of TV: The forgotten "Breaking Bad" spin-off that never should have happened, for example, or the two failed "Married... with Children" spin-offs that starred Matt Le Blanc. "The Law & Harry McGraw" had a particularly ignoble small-screen run, however — not necessarily because it was bad, but because it was canceled after less than half a season.

Like the mothership series, "The Law & Harry McGraw" was a mystery crime drama series. It was created by "Murder, She Wrote" co-creator Peter S. Fischer and followed Jerry Orbach's Harry McGraw, a boorish, hard-drinking Boston private detective who was essentially a prototypical Lennie Briscoe, the character Orbach eventually became known for playing on "Law & Order." McGraw was also very much an archetypal hard boiled gumshoe, straight out of the film noir era.

Prior to fronting his own offshoot, the McGraw character had appeared in six episodes of "Murder, She Wrote" beginning with the Season 1 installment "Tough Guys Don't Die." When he first encountered Jessica Fletcher, he was investigating the murder of his former partner Archie Miles (Floyd Levine). In his spin-off, McGraw had a lot more to do, mostly thanks to buttoned-down attorney Ellie Maginnis (Barbara Babcock), who worked out of an office opposite McGraw's and used his investigative services for her cases. It was a clash of personalities with a subtle romantic undertone that was never explored due to the simple fact "The Law & Harry McGraw" didn't last long enough. It did last long enough to host Alan Hale Jr., however.

"The Law & Harry McGraw" began airing on CBS in September 1987, the same month in which "Murder, She Wrote" debuted its fourth season. While the main series finished its 22-episode run in May of 1988, Harry McGraw didn't make it past February, with CBS pulling him off-duty after 16 episodes. "The Law & Harry McGraw" wasn't exactly a ratings disaster. It regularly pulled in 15 million viewers. But that was half what "Murder, She Wrote" was averaging, and CBS dropped the axe. Not before Alan Hale Jr. returned to the "Murder, She Wrote" universe, however.

This time, he played an entirely different character to his motel owner from the main series. In "The Law & Harry McGraw" episode 12, "Gilhooley's Is History," McGraw is dismayed to learn that a developer plans to tear down the titular bar, which happens to be his favorite watering hole. Hale Jr. plays the owner of the joint in question, Patrick Gilhooley. McGraw's dismay turns to disbelief when he learns Gilhooley is more than willing to sell to the developers, pushing him to investigate and uncover the truth behind the shady deal.

Gilhooley was Hale Jr.'s final small-screen role, and he was as charismatic as ever. It was fitting that "The Law & Harry McGraw" aired on CBS, too — the same network that hosted "Gilligan's Island" 20 years prior. "Gilhooley's Is History" aired in January 1988, the year after Hale Jr. had reunited with Bob Denver in a forgotten comedy. After that, he appeared in the 1989 horror film "Terror Night" before passing away the following year. Meanwhile, after his spin-off was canceled, Jerry Orbach reprised the role of Harry McGraw in three more "Murder, She Wrote" episodes.