SLOAN, Dr. Mark
(Diagnosis Murder)
Community General Hospital (CGH)
Los Angeles, CA

Mark is a physician. He is single, owns a two-unit beach house in Malibu and has a penchant for solving crimes. Currently, Mark works as the chief of Internal Medicine at Community General Hospital in Los Angeles.  Mark’s beloved wife Katherine passed away ten years ago from cancer.

Dr. Mark Sloan

As a special consultant with the LAPD, Mark gets involved with a number of criminal investigations, coincidentally, handled by his bachelor son, Detective Lt. Steve Sloan.

When it comes to solving crimes, Mark Sloan meticulously investigates the issues and waits for that special moment when that one little clue directs him to the killer. While waiting for the special moment Mark might find the time to roller skate down the hallways of the hospital or practice some magic tricks. When Mark sets out to find a killer, he is an equal opportunity seeker of the truth. As he once said. “I don’t have to be on any side, I’m eccentric and almost retired.”

Mark’s close friends at the hospital included Dr. Jack Stewart, a young streetwise resident [and Sloan’s prodigy]; Amanda Bentley Livingston, a pathology resident [she later became a medical examiner for the L. A. P. D. - Mark  is the godfather to her son, CJ & Jesse delivered her baby]; Emergency Room Dr. Jesse Travis, whose father is a spy; while his mother is a podiatrist in the Midwest [Jesse replaced Jack who finished his residency and moved to Vail, Colorado]; Norman Briggs, the penny-pinching hospital administrator [he left the hospital after an injury]; Nurse Delores Mitchell, Mark's longtime friend; and newcomer medical student, Alex Smith.

Mark’s relatives included his estranged daughter Carol Sloan Hilton [married to an abusive (later dead) husband]; his sister, Dora; his sleepwalking brother, Stacy; James Sloan, his father (who abandoned Mark as a child); Mark's look-alike millionaire cousin, Jonathan Nash [who  bequeathed his million-dollar fortune to the hospital]; and Jonathan's children: J. Edison, Judith, and Julian Nash. [who bear a strong family resemblance to their father]. One of Mark’s old friends is attorney Ben Matlock who lives in Atlanta. He defended Jesse when he was accused of murder. Another old friend is private detective, Joe Mannix with whom Marks helps solve a 25-year-old murder.

Mark's son, Steve, lives in the unit below his dad in Malibu after his apartment was destroyed  n the earthquake. He likes to jog, play chess with his dad, toss the basketball and work out at the local gym. And while Mark loves his son dearly, Mark often worries about Steve dangerous lifestyle as a police man. Steve's been with the Robbery/Homicide Division of the LAPD for four years.

The cases both Mark and Steve tackled were sometimes bizarre and often dangerous. They included: saving a bed-ridden Senator from a top assassin, uncovering the real culprit in a crime that framed Steve for robbery; searching for the killer of prostitute; bringing to justice a murderous supreme court justice and crooked adoption  agency officials; tracking down the source of a a deadly virus; going undercover in a convent to investigate a murder; being stalked by a mad bomber; preventing a serial cop killer (whose dating Steve) from killing his son;  scripting the demise of a best-selling mystery author with writers block who turns killer; appearing on a quiz show to uncover the killer of a game show contestant; getting assigned as physician on a cruise ship to find a killer; tracking down the killer of a chef who was murdered on a televised charity cook-off; and investigating an airline crash or stolen nuclear weapons..

Mark's bizarre cases involved: dead bodies drained of blood; a killer dating service; a friends body being found in the body of a shark; a body of a mentor entombed in a wall in the hospital;  rash of deaths at a high school; murders committed by terminally ill patients; a serial killer who kills people on-the-hour at Community General Hospital; and corrupt homicide cops who murder felons to harvest their organs. But possibly the most horrible of all Mark's experiences was dealing with...IRS agents.

When Mark is not scooting around on his new electric scooter or conducting his seminars with a rapper's beat, he finds time to sing in a barbershop quartet, go dancing or visit the local comedy club. One of Mark's favorite movie star is silent movie star Buster Keaton. He placed a picture of the comedian on his office wall. Inspired by Dr. Sloan's penchant for amateur sleuthing, film producer Jackson Burley even made a television pilot called DR. DANGER. In the fall of 1995 Mark served as a teaching physician at the hospital.

Mark is also a silent partner with BBQ Bob’s, a restaurant jointly owned by his son, Steve and Jesse Travis. The only drawback to having Mark visit the restaurant is that he sometimes spoils the appetites of anyone within ear shot when he discusses in graphic detail, his medical cases at the hospital. Once Jesse's girlfriend, Susan, got food poisoning after dining at BBQ Bob's. Luckily, a doctor was in the house.

In 1998, Steve was shot and Mark was convicted for the murder of Gordon Ganza and placed on death row. After Steve recovered, he and associate Tanis Archer hunted down the real killers and eventually got Mark out of prison. With his life back on track, Mark continued to do what he did best: comfort the sick with his humorous nature and medical skills and, in his spare time, play amateur detective.

TRIVIA NOTE: DIAGNOSIS MURDER is a spin-off of the detective drama JAKE & THE FAT MAN (episode "It Never Entered My Mind" aired on March 20, 1991 where Dick Van Dyke played Dr. Sloan, who investigates the murder of a hospital administrator with help from his medical students.

Jerry Van Dyke, the real brother of Dick Van Dyke played Mark Sloan's fictional sleepwalking brother, Stacy on the series. Not so coincidentally, Stacy's sleepwalking affliction was drawn from THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW where Jerry Van Dyke played Stacy Petrie the sleepwalking brother of comedy writer Robert Petrie (played by Dick Van Dyke).

Born Richard Wayne Van Dyke, the 6' 1" actor/comedian Dick Van Dyke arrived on earth on December 13th, 1925 in West Plains, Missouri. He grew up in Danville, Illinois with his parents (Loren and Hazel) and his brother Jerry. Dick served in the United States Air Force and used his dancing and comic timing to entertain the troops. In 1948 he married  his first wife, Margie Willet in 1948 (divorced in 1970s) on a local radio program who paid for the expenses of the ceremony. His four children from the first marriage (Barry, Carrie-Beth, Christian and Stacy) appeared on his show DIAGNOSIS MURDER. For his role in the film Bye Bye Birdie  (1960), Dick won a Tony Award and later a Grammy Award for the Mary Poppins soundtrack in 1964). Dick Van Dyke received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1992. Since the 1980s, Dick (a recovering alcoholic) lives in Malibu with his companion Michelle Triola Marvin.

His television credits included: host of THE MORNING SHOW (1955-56); host of CBS CARTOON THEATRE (1958); the star of THE CHEVY SHOWROOM (1958); host of MOTHER'S DAY (1958); host of LAUGH LINE (1959); as Robert Petrie on the sitcom THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW (1961-66); as Dick Preston on the sitcom THE NEW DICK VAN DYKE SHOW (1971); host of VAN DYKE & COMPANY (1976); as Dick Burgess on the sitcom THE VAN DYKE SHOW (1988); and as Dr. Mark Sloan on the medical drama DIAGNOSIS MURDER.

Dick Van Dyke's  movie credits included: as Albert Peterson in Bye, Bye Birdie (1963); as Bert, the chimney sweep in the Disney film Mary Poppins (1964); as Lt. Robinson Crusoe in the Disney film Lt. Robinson Crusoe U.S.N. (1966); as Claude Fitzwilliams in Fitzwilly (1967); as Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang, Bang (1968); as Reverend Clayton Brooks in Cold Turkey  1971); and as Weller Martin in The Gin Game (2003 - with his former co-star Mary Tyler Moore).