Tragic Details About The Cast Of The Love Boat

Trigger Warning: This article mentions substance abuse and suicide.

Come aboard for an '80s classic! "The Love Boat" premiered in 1977 and ran for nine seasons before ending in 1986. (It returned for four primetime specials the following year.) The show took place on a cruise ship and followed the adventures of the boat's workers and passengers. Each week saw a different cast of famous guest stars playing vacationers on the ship, while the boat's work staff (consisting of The Captain, The Doctor, The Bartender, and The Cruise Director, among others) appeared in every episode. The series combined elements of drama, comedy, and romance.

While the show was a success and actors in the main cast have achieved a steady career of work in the industry, stars of the show were no strangers to dealing with difficult issues behind the scenes. Some of the cast members also chose to leave acting behind once the show came to an end. Unlike on the show, not every situation ended with a classic happily ever after.

Actress Lauren Tewes played the friendly cruise director Julie McCoy from the show's very first episode. But in real life, the actress struggled with an addiction to cocaine. Tewes was written out of "The Love Boat" at the end of the show's seventh season and seemingly disappeared from Hollywood.

She was replaced by Patricia Klous who took on the role of Tewes' character's sister and new cruise director. ("Married... with Children" star Ted McGinley also joined the cast around the time of Tewes' departure, playing the ship's photographer). Klous remained on the show until the series finale. Thankfully, Tewes got help for her addiction and returned for a guest appearance on "The Love Boat" during the show's final season.

Tewes' co-star Fred Grandy, who played the character Gopher on the series, has offered his support to Tewes in regards to her firing. In September 2024, Grandy called Tewes "a sister" to the cast. "The circumstances of her departure were not so lovely," he said (via People). "This would've been the early '80s, substance abuse on a set in those days was a punishable offense. It was not a healthcare problem, and it was not understood in the way it is understood now. And to some degree, she was a victim of circumstance at the time because the attention and care and therapy she should have gotten was meted out in the form of discipline." He added that Tewes "has recovered magnificently" and is still close with many cast members of "The Love Boat."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Gavin MacLeod played the respected Captain Stubing on "The Love Boat" and was already famous from being a cast member on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." But before MacLeod struck it big as an actor, he struggled with feeling inadequate. In 1962, he became a series regular on the military comedy series "McHale's Navy." In a 2003 interview with the Archive of American Television, MacLeod detailed how his minimal role on the show sent him into a depression. "I had like, two lines a week," he remembered. "I started feeling sorry for myself. I started to drink. I started to be very, very unhappy."

"One night, I remember I was drinking, and I just felt like I couldn't go home," MacLeod recalled. "As an actor, I was just going down the tubes." Feeling at an all time low, he thought of ending his life by driving off of nearby hills. But luckily, "Something made me put my foot on the break," MacLeod said. At the request of a friend, MacLeod began seeing a therapist and ultimately decided to leave "McHale's Navy." When he was finally released from the show, MacLeod, "felt like a bird let out of a cage," he described. Feeling enthusiastic about his future, MacLeod started to appear in more substantial projects shortly after including the 1966 movie "The Sand Pebbles" with acclaimed actor Steve McQueen. And in 1970, his life changed when he was cast on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," catapulting him to stardom. After decades of a successful acting career, MacLeod died in 2021 at 90 years old.

Spanish performer Charo was a frequent guest star on "The Love Boat." She recurred on the show as the character April Lopez and became known for her firecracker energy, infectious laugh, and silly catchphrase. But while her career took off, her personal life has included tragedy. In August 1978, Charo married her second husband, Kjell Rasten, who became her manager shortly thereafter. Sadly, after more than four decades of marriage, Rasten died by suicide in 2019. Charo released a statement confirming the news, saying (via People): "In recent years, his health began to decline and he developed a rare and horrible skin disease called Bullous Pemphigoid. He also became very depressed. That, along with the many medications he needed to take, became too much for him, and he ended his suffering. None of us had any idea this could happen to such a wonderful, kind and generous man."

Charo also faced criticism when she married her first husband, Xavier Cugat. The two married in 1966 when Charo was just a teenager and Cugat was forty years her senior. Charo has said that she only married Cugat to gain American citizenship, thus they divorced in 1978, one year after she became a naturalized citizen. This also caused a controversy bringing into question her official date of birth. According to The LA Times, Charo originally said she was born in 1947. However, her naturalization papers claimed she was born in 1941, but she insisted in court that she was actually born in 1951. She often does not comment on her exact age but in a 2022 interview with The New York Times, Charo insisted that she was 71 years old.

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