IN the age of the character-driven television series, there was a notable passing in 2009: “Monk,” the Emmy-winning USA show about an obsessive-compulsive crime-solver, went off the air in December after eight seasons. The series, with Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk, was one of the earliest examples of what has since become common fare: programs built around characters who are distinctive misfits. Some of the most obvious include “House” on Fox, with Hugh Laurie as an irascible doctor; “Psych” on USA, with James Roday solving crimes via fake psychic powers; “The Closer” on TNT, with Kyra Sedgwick as a deputy police chief tackling major crimes in Los Angeles.
These are the types of roles that can follow an actor around for life. “Do the limp,” you can hear fans urging Mr. Laurie 20 years from now. For some this might seem like an albatross; being so identified with one role might limit future possibilities. Or is it, rather — as Monk might say — a blessing and a curse?
If you want to find out what the actors behind today’s memorable TV characters can expect in the future, ask the stars of an earlier era. Here are some of their insights and anecdotes regarding life after a signature role.
Gavin MacLeod
Capt. Merrill Stubing, The Love Boat,1977-87; Murray Slaughter, The Mary Tyler MooreShow, 1970-77
Gavin MacLeod may hold some kind of record for consecutive long-running series: he went straight from being the news writer in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (168 episodes) to being captain of “The Love Boat” (249 episodes).
“No matter where I go, I’m Murray to some people and captain to other people,” Mr. MacLeod said. “Mostly the captain.”
Perhaps no actor has embraced a signature role the way Mr. MacLeod has with Captain Stubing. Since “The Love Boat” went off the air, he has been a spokesman for Princess Cruises.
Fame wasn’t easy, as he and his wife, Patti, documented in the 1987 book “Back on Course: The Remarkable Story of a Divorce That Ended in Remarriage.” But Mr. MacLeod, 79, has kept busy, particularly with stage work, which he says he prefers to television.
He is also the honorary mayor of Pacific Palisades in California, and in that capacity has been reminded of a show business truism: You just never know what people will latch onto. Before “The Love Boat” or “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” he had a small role in two episodes of “Hawaii Five-0” as a drug dealer with a funny name, and he said that at the Pacific Palisades Fourth of July parade, someone in the crowd is bound to remember.
“There’s always one guy there who says, ‘Hey, Big Chicken, how’s things?’ ” he said.
Dawn Wells
Mary Ann Summers, Gilligans Island,1964-67
Mary Ann was the embodiment of sunny good cheer while stranded on an island with six other castaways, but Dawn Wells, who played her, gets a bit testy at the idea that an actor might feel burdened because people can’t forget one particular TV role.
“I don’t think you as an actor would accept a job on a series hoping it will be a failure,” Ms. Wells, 71, said. “If you accept that role, you accept the responsibility.”
And yes, that means accepting that many people don’t separate characters from the actors who played them. That was evident when Jim Backus, who played Thurston Howell III on the show, died in 1989, more than 20 years after it went off the air. “We got letters like it was my family,” Ms. Wells (above, with Bob Denver) said. “Flowers were sent to our house.”
Ms. Wells said her Mary Ann fame has opened more doors than it has closed. There has been plenty of stage work, including, last year, a run in “Over the River and Through the Woods” near Toronto. There has also been producing and teaching, as well as a clothing line.
Occasionally, though, Mary Ann has been a stumbling block. A decade ago Ms. Wells saw “The Vagina Monologues,” the Eve Ensler play with an ever-changing cast of celebrity monologists, in New York and was intrigued.
“I wrote the producers and said I’d like to do it,” Ms. Wells said. “And they said: ‘Are you out of your mind? Mary Ann?’ ” Eventually, though, she was cast in a touring production of the play.
Julie Newmar
Catwoman, Batman, 1966-67
Some actors are identified with a particular role because they played it for years, in a hundred or more episodes. It took Julie Newmar only a handful of appearances in the original “Batman” series to be forever known as Catwoman. The slinky sexiness of her portrayal certainly helped, especially with male viewers.
“Whenever I’m stopped on the street,” Ms. Newmar said, “men tell me, ‘Ms. Newmar, did you know that you were my first turn-on?’ I would ask the next question: ‘How old were you?’ ”
The answers that have come back — some of the admirers said they were as young as 4 — led to one of her current writing projects, a book on first fantasies. (She is inviting submissions at julienewmarwrites.com.) Ms. Newmar, now 76 and still with that purr in her voice, has no problem being a fantasy object to so many, or being asked to autograph some odd things. “I’ve seen some interesting flesh,” she said.