Harold Gould — “Golden Girls” & “Mary Tyler Moore” Star — Dies At 86

Oh Dear Heavens, No! Not Miles!

Veteran actor Harold Gould, who played Betty White’s professor boyfriend “Miles” for a season of The Golden Girls in the mid-’80s and also starred as Valerie Harper’s dad on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda, died at nursing home in the Motion Picture and Television Fund Retirement Community in Woodland Hills, California on Saturday, Sept. 11. Gould succumbed after a lengthy battle against prostate cancer, the actor’s daughter-in-law Leah Gould told The Washington Post Tuesday.

He was 86.

Gould earned one of his five Emmy nominations for acting opposite Katharine Hepburn in the television movie Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry. The other nods were for his work in Police Story, Rhoda, The Ray Bradbury Theater, and The Scarlett O’Hara War. The former college drama professor from Schenectady, NY, also appeared in Inside Daisy Clover, Harper, Silent Movie, Love and Death, and Patch Adams, as well as classic TV shows like Police Story, The Twilight Zone, and I Dream of Jeannie.

In recent years, Gould appeared opposite Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in the film Freaky Friday.

He is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Lea Shampanier, three children, and five grandchildren.