Alan Hale, Sr. (born Rufus Edward Mackahan, February 10, 1892 - January 22,1950) was an American movie actor and director, best known for his many supporting character roles, in particular as frequent sidekick of Errol Flynn. He was the father of lookalike actor Alan Hale, Jr., best known as "the Skipper" on television's Gilligan's Island.

He was born in Washington, D.C.. His first film role was in the 1911 silent movie The Cowboy and the Lady. He played "Little John" in the 1922 film Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks and Wallace Beery, reprised the role sixteen years later in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) with Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, then played Little John again in Rogues of Sherwood Forest in 1950 with Bo Derek's future husband John Derek as Robin Hood, 28 years after his initial performance in the original Fairbanks classic (this might be the longest period for any actor to appear in the same role in movie history). His other films include Fog Over Frisco, The Little Minister, and It Happened One Night with Clark Gable, all released in 1934; the 1937 remake of Stella Dallas (1937); High, Wide, and Handsome (1937); The Fighting 69th (1940) with James Cagney; They Drive By Night (1940) with George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, and Humphrey Bogart; Manpower (1941) with Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, and George Raft; and as the cantankerous Sgt. McGee in the 1943 movie This Is the Army with George Murphy and Ronald Reagan. Hale directed eight movies during the 1920s and 1930s and acted in 235 theatrical films (according to the Internet Movie Database).

Hale's son Alan Hale, Jr. played the Skipper in Gilligan's Island on television, and the two blond and heavy-set actors closely resembled each other. Both men had very long and extremely successful movie/television careers.

Alan Hale, Sr. died in Hollywood, California on January 22,1950 following a liver ailment and viral infection. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Hale's son (who died 40 years later, almost to the day), often regretted that his father had died before the major success of Gilligan's Island.

Alan Hale (born 1958) is an American astronomer.

Hale was born in Tachikawa, Japan, in 1958, but grew up in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He served in the US Navy from 1976-1983, when he left the Navy. His next job was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where he worked until 1986. While at the JPL, he worked as an engineering contractor for the Deep Space Network. While working as a contractor, he was involved with several projects involving spacecraft, including Voyager 2. After Voyager's encounter with Uranus, he left JPL to attend New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, earning his Ph.D. in astronomy in 1992. Facing a poor job market for astronomers, he founded the Southwest Institute for Space Research (now formally named the Earthrise Institute). Hale is an advocate for improved scientific literacy in society, better career opportunities for scientists, and individual responsibility for making a better society. He co-discovered Comet Hale-Bopp in 1995 after seeing more than 200 comets. His family includes wife Eva, sons Zachary (now a college student) and Tyler in Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Alan Hale decided on a film career after his attempt at becoming an opera singer didn't pan out. He quickly became much in demand as a supporting actor, starred in several films for Cecil B. DeMille and directed others for him. With the advent of sound Hale played leads in a few films, but soon settled down into a career as one of the busiest character actors in the business. He was one of the featured members of what became known as the "Warner Brothers Stock Co.", a corps of character actors and actresses who appeared in scores of Warner Bros. films of the 1930s and 1940s. Hale's best known role is probably in Adventures of Robin Hood, The (1938), one of several films he made with his friend Errol Flynn (I), in which he played Little John, a role he played in two other films - Robin Hood (1922) and Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950).