<\/p>\n
Bernie Kopell<\/strong> is best known for his role as Dr. Adam Bricker on The Love Boat<\/em>. The actor played the cruise ship Casanova on the ABC romantic comedy-drama from 1977 to 1986, but the origin of his character\u2019s name has an unconventional backstory.<\/p>\n Kopell, now 92, recently told People<\/em> magazine<\/a> that he helped come up with Bricker\u2019s name after director Hy Averback<\/strong> felt he didn\u2019t fit the name for the character from the 1976 Love Boat<\/a><\/em>movie. In the original movie, Dick Van Patten<\/strong> played the role of Dr. Adam O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n “There were some late-night meetings about how to name this guy,” Kopell told the outlet. “And [Averback] said, ‘Well, the guy chases the ladies. He’s a bit of a pricker, isn’t he?’ I said, \u2018Well, we can’t call him that. We have to change the P to a B.\u2019 And that’s how it came about.\u201d<\/p>\n Kopell previously explained to the Television Academy Foundation<\/a> why he didn\u2019t inherit the name Dr. Adam O\u2019Neill when he appeared in The Love Boat II<\/em> TV movie, which served as the pilot for the long-running series.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m not at liberty to divulge how the name change came about,\u201d Kopell said of his brainstorming session with Averback. \u201cBut leaving it to the imagination, Hy Averback, who directed the first one that I did\u2026 He said, \u2018Dr Adam O\u2019Neil…that really is not going to work for you, Mr. Kopell.\u2019 So he said we got to change [it].”<\/p>\n “Now, this is midnight, everybody’s throwing him, \u2018Call him this and call him that and call him something else.\u2019 So he said, \u2018Okay, the guy’s a very proficient doctor, he chases the ladies, so he’s a bit of a\u2026 ‘ he didn’t use the word that sounds like Bricker. He said, \u2018Let’s call him Dr. Adam\u2026.so we just change the P to a B and that’ll be your name,'” Kopell recalled. “So that’s how it evolved. That’s not politically correct, but that’s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Kopell, who previously had recurring roles on That Girl <\/em>and Get Smart,<\/em> revealed that he had never played a sex symbol before his role as Dr. Bricker. \u201cNever, never, so that was a big shock to me,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n Kopell\u2019s character wasn\u2019t the only one who changed from the movie to the series.<\/p>\n On the CW\u2019s TV We Love<\/a>, <\/em>it was revealed that in the original Love Boat <\/em>TV movie, dashing Australian actor Ted Hamilton played Captain Thomas Allenford III, but the then-president of ABC felt he was good-looking to play the ship\u2019s captain. In fact, if they\u2019d kept Hamilton in the role, producers feared he\u2019d <\/em>be the cruise ship Casanova, so they replaced him with Gavin MacLeod as Capt. Merrill Stubing instead.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Nov 23, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bernie Kopell is best known for his role as Dr. Adam Bricker on The Love Boat. The actor played the cruise ship Casanova on the ABC romantic comedy-drama from 1977 to 1986, but the origin of his character\u2019s name has an unconventional backstory. Kopell, now 92, recently told People magazine that he helped come up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2173464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[417911,417913,371618,384153,417912],"class_list":["post-2173463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-adam-bricker","tag-adam-oneill","tag-bernie-kopell","tag-casanova","tag-hy-averback"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\u2018Love-Boat-Star-92-Reveals-Why-He-Changed-His-Iconic.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2173463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2173465,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173463\/revisions\/2173465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2173464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2173463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2173463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2173463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The \u2018Love Boat\u2019 Doctor Was Kopell’s First Role as a Sex Symbol<\/h3>\n