Whatever Happened To Ted Lange From The Love Boat?

"Love, exciting and new!" That classic opening line from the theme song for "The Love Boat." greeted viewers each Saturday night during the late 1970s and '80s who watched "The Love Boat." Set on the Pacific Princess cruise ship, the series followed the romantic escapades of passengers played by a revolving gaggle of guest stars. These celebrities ran the gamut, from up-and-coming stars (including two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks and future "Friends" star Courtney Cox, to name a couple), to Hollywood stars from a bygone era (Olivia de Havilland, Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelly, and Debbie Reynolds all guest-starred), to the downright unexpected — which was certainly the case when Andy Warhol came onboard.

Meanwhile, fans of the show also caught up with the weekly exploits of the ship's crew, which included Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin McLeod, whose heartbreaking death at age 90 occurred in 2021), cruise director Julie McCoy (Lauren Tewes, who disappeared from Hollywood for tragic reasons), purser "Gopher" Smith (future four-term Iowa congressman Fred Grandy), and ship's doctor Adam Bricker (Bernie Kopell). Mixing up cocktails in the Princess lounge was bartender Isaac Washington, a fan-favorite character played by actor Ted Lange.

So what has he been up to since the show ended its 10-season run in 1987, after 250 episodes and countless miles at sea? Quite a bit, actually, which will be clear by reading on for a look at whatever happened to Ted Lange from "The Love Boat."

For Ted Lange, his decade playing Isaac Washington on "The Love Boat" was smooth sailing. "It was a great experience doing it," he told CBC in 2017. "I did a couple other shows that were not great experiences," he added.

In fact, after the show ended its run in 1987, Lange shifted from serving drinks to guest stars to becoming one himself. Among the numerous TV shows he guest-starred on during that period were "227," "In the Heat of the Night," "The Highwayman" and more. That said, Lange was also eager to move onto something else after playing the same character in the fluffiest of TV comedies for 10 years. It's fair to say that after the series ended, he tried to downplay his role on the show. "Right after the series went into syndication, I would pooh-pooh a little bit about my experience being on 'The Love Boat,'" he said in an interview with Closer.

His attitude changed, however, when a woman approached him to thank him for all the joy that he and "The Love Boat" brought to her father while he was battling terminal cancer. "Our show took him out of his pain for an hour... From that point on, I realized that while our critics were always pretty hard on us, they're not the general population," he recalled. "The general population loved our show."

Ever since he was a teenager, Ted Lange had been enamored of the work of William Shakespeare. Having appeared in multiple Shakespeare plays over the course of his career, he came to appreciate the language utilized by the Bard of Avon and how much choice it offered actors. "What studying Shakespeare taught me, though, was the subtlety of the line," Lange explained in an interview with South Florida Business & Wealth Magazine, noting how an actor could interpret a single line in a variety of ways. "What Shakespeare does is that it gives you the other layers, which allows you and the director to decide on the direction that your character should go."

Lange shared his love of Shakespeare with the world in 1989, directing and starring in a direct-to-video production of "Othello." As Lange told the Los Angeles Times, he'd always avoided "Othello" because he felt it had become a cliche, the only Shakespeare character in which Black actors were typically cast. "I had a prejudice against it because it was for a Black man, and I didn't want to do what people expected me to do," he explained. However, he reread the play and came to have a whole new perspective on the story, discovering a passionate love story between Othello and doomed Desdemona. "Most people play up the villainy and manipulation between Iago and Othello," he said. "But that's just a part of it."

Even after "The Love Boat" sailed off into the horizon, Ted Lange found it difficult to completely shake Isaac Washington. He revived the character in 1990 when he reunited with the cast for the 1990 TV movie, "The Love Boat: A Valentine Voyage." He also appeared as Isaac a few years later in a 1995 episode of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," mixing cocktails on the set for the talk show host and guests.

In 1998, a spin-off of the series was launched, "The Love Boat: The Next Wave." Featuring a whole new crew, with the cruise ship captained by actor Robert Urich, the show only sailed for a single season, sinking into cancellation after 25 episodes. Lange guest-starred in one of those episodes, passing the torch to the ship's new bartender, Paolo, played by Randy Vasquez.

Interestingly, Lange nearly turned down what came to be his signature role because Isaac played such a tiny part in the pilot. "ABC sent the script [for which I was] only in three scenes [and] the opening, where I stood with the crew. Silent," Lange told the Washington Times, revealing he only had three lines in the entire episode: "Here's your margarita, sir," "Why do you feel bad?" and "This is on the house." Lange called his agent to tell him to pass, because he didn't want to do it. "He said, 'Ted, have you ever been to Acapulco? It's 10 grand for three scenes. And you don't have to do a lot of work. Besides, this is not going to sell.' Famous last words," he added.

While he was starring on "The Love Boat," Ted Lange became interested in directing. He made his debut behind the camera in 1983, directing an episode of another (and very similar) series produced by "Love Boat" creator Aaron Spelling, "Fantasy Island." He followed that up by directing a few episodes of TV drama "The Fall Guy," then an episode of his own show, and a couple of episodes of the spin-off series, "The Love Boat: The Next Wave." 

All told, Lange has racked up directing credits on more than 20 TV shows. Other series he's helmed have included "Moesha," "Dharma and Greg," and "The First Family," directing 23 episodes of the latter syndicated comedy created by comedian-turned-media mogul Byron Allen. 

Looking back on his first directing gigs, Lange credits his three episodes of "The Fall Guy" to a boozy night in Hong Kong with the show's star, Lee Majors. As Lange recalled, during their conversation, Majors noted he'd heard that Lange was venturing into directing, and suggested he handle an episode of his show. "I directed 'Fall Guy' because Lee Majors and I got drunk together," Lange recalled in an interview with "Still Here Hollywood Podcast." 

In 2003, Ted Lange traded Isaac Washington's "Love Boat" cocktail shaker for a gavel when he was cast as a judge in "General Hospital," a daytime soap that's definitely changed over the years. As Entertainment Weekly pointed out at the time, he'd signed on for a three-episode stint as the judge overseeing the murder trial of Sonny Corinthios (played by veteran "General Hospital" star Maurice Benard). 

Interestingly, among the 80-plus screen credits he's amassed as actor, "GH" is the only soap opera in which he's appeared. Guest-starring roles during the 2000s included such series as "Scrubs," "The King of Queens," "Psych," and even playing an animated version of himself on the "Family Guy" spinoff "The Cleveland Show." Jumping ahead a decade or so, he appeared on the 2022 series "The Real Love Boat," a TV dating show cut from the same cloth as hit reality show "The Bachelor," although instead of being set in a mansion, all the action took place aboard a cruise ship.

In addition to acting and directing, "Love Boat" alum Ted Lange has also found success as a playwright — to the point that he's written more than 25 plays. He's also been officially recognized for his writing; his play, "The Cause, My Soul, the Prequel to Othello," received an NAACP Theatre Award for the best play of 2017. 

Interviewed by "Life of Dad," Lange admitted that of all the various creative disciplines he's mastered, he still prefers acting to anything else. Writing plays, he explained, came about out of necessity. "Sometimes you just can't get the gig," he said. "So rather than to not act and not participate artistically I started directing. Then out of the stories that I was directing there were stories that I wanted to tell. I accidentally became a playwright." Initially he wrote plays in which he would star, but eventually began following his artistic muse, whether there was a part for him in the play or not. "Sometimes the stories were so compelling and there wasn't a part for me, but I decided to tell the story anyway," he said.

One of his plays, titled "Four Queens — No Trump," was published as a book in 2014. That play tells the story of four Black women who come together for a weekly game of cards, where the conversation gets honest — and a little raunchy.

While Ted Lange has built up a healthy roster of film and television roles over the years, that pales in comparison to the amount of live theater he's done. In fact, after graduating from college, he joined a Shakespearean theater company. His first big break as an actor, in fact, came via theater, when he made his Broadway debut in a production of the musical "Hair." 

"Originally, I wanted to be a Shakespearean actor," Lange told South Florida Business & Wealth magazine, recalling that he was just 18 when he was cast in a production of "Romeo and Juliet." "But then I started finding out that Shakespearean actors don't get paid that much," he said, explaining why he gravitated from theater to the screen. "It's satisfying, artistically, but you don't make enough money to pay your rent and buy groceries," he said of acting onstage. "So, I started broadening my horizons and looking around at other opportunities, like television and movies."

According to Lange, it's not accurate to say that he abandoned theater for television. While working on "The Love Boat," he was part of an L.A. theatrical troupe, the Inner City Cultural Center. "Whenever I was on break from television or movies, I would do theater and keep my toe in that water," he explained. 

Viewers who watched Isaac Washington whip up cocktails on "The Love Boat" likely had no idea that the actor who portrayed him had spent one of the show's summer hiatuses studying at London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. As Ted Lange told Closer, he owed the experience to guest star Lynn Redgrave, whom he met when she appeared on "The Love Boat." Between takes, they'd bonded over their shared appreciation of Shakespeare. "At the time I told her my goal was to have a career in American TV," Lange said in an interview with Southwest Tennessee Community College. He was humbled, however, when she told him, "I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to be an actor." It was Redgrave who pointed him in the direction of the academy. "She even wrote a letter of recommendation!" he told Closer.

Since then, he's appeared in numerous theatrical productions of Shakespeare's plays. In 2019, he took his knowledge to Southwest Tennessee Community College, where he taught a master class in Shakespearean acting. Among the advice he imparted on those aspiring actors in his class was to have Shakespeare's complete works on hand. "It can help you with contemporary plays because reciting Shakespeare teaches you how to use words and phrases," he said in the interview for the college.

Ted Lange has had no problem revisiting the world of "The Love Boat" from time to time — albeit with one major caveat. "But one thing they can't do is get me on a cruise," Lange told Entertainment Weekly back in 2003. "I get offers all the time, but I'm not getting on those damn boats again."

Lange reneged on that particular vow in 2017 when he boarded a Princess cruise ship with a specific mission in mind. "Princess Cruises asked me to come on board and invent a cocktail that they could serve to their passengers while they're cruising," he said in a promotional video. As Lange explained, he'd actually studied mixology in preparation for his "Love Boat" role, and was a licensed bartender while playing one on TV — which made him just the guy to create a cocktail. 

That drink was, naturally, dubbed the Isaac, and it's pretty easy to make. Fill a highball glass with ice, and let it sit. Take some more ice and place it in a cocktail shaker, along with 2 oz of white rum, 2 oz of pomegranate syrup, and 1/2 oz of lime juice. Give it a good shake, and strain into the ice-filled glass. Top it off with a splash of club soda, and then add some tropical "Love Boat"-style flair by garnishing with a slice of lime and a pair of pineapple spears.

One fact about Ted Lange that even the most loyal "Love Boat" fans may not be aware of is that he's also written several plays based on American History, which have been published as books. These include "Let Freedom Ring: Based on a True Story ... Almost!" a blend of historical fact and made-up fiction about what caused the crack in the Liberty Bell. Lange also wrote "George Washington's Boy," about the close relationship that America's first president had with his slave, William Lee, and "Lady Patriot," about the intermingling lives of three very different women during the Civil War. The latter two books were sold together as part of "The Footnote Historian's Trilogy," along with one of Lange's other plays, "The Journals of Osborne P. Anderson."

"I have written an American history trilogy," Lange told "Life of Dad," revealing that when doing research for those books, he would draw information from multiple sources and cross-reference as much as possible. "Then I take a dramatic stand from the basic information," he added. "You can't just go with one book. One book might have a certain bias in it. My job as the historian playwright is to cross reference so I get a more accurate view of what went on at that time."

Ted Lange and his first wife, Sheryl Thompson, divorced in 1989 (he married a second time, tying the knot with current spouse Mary Ley in 2001). Lange and his ex-wife share two grown sons, Ted IV and Turner Wallace Lange. "My oldest I call T-Bone. The other one I call Turner Burner," Lange told "Life of Dad," sharing the nicknames he'd given his sons. "They are really great guys. I love them madly. I want them to meet a person on their own ground and their own values. I want them to be straight up stand-up guys. That is what I try to pass on to them."

As a father, the most important trait he ever wanted his sons to possess was integrity. According to Lange, he's seen that reflected in them when they learn he'd worked with a particular actor, and asked whether that particular person was nice. "I later realized that was from me trying to get them to be nice people," he observed.

Over the course of 10 seasons, it shouldn't be surprising that the cast of "The Love Boat" grew close. That was certainly the case with Ted Lange and co-star Fred Grandy, who went on to become a member of Congress after his decade as Gopher. In fact, the two have maintained that friendship over the years that have passed since the show ended its run, and continue to be tight as of the time of writing.

"We've had a close friendship, on set and off, for the past 40 years," Lange told Closer, revealing their shared interest in live theater had bonded them, both personally and professionally. "We are both theater people. We started a production company recently with three other artists called Five for the Show. Our goal is to bring quality theater projects to the general public." 

The result of that collaboration was a 2019 production of "I'm Not Rappaport" at the Redhouse Arts Center in Syracuse, New York, in which the two co-starred. That actually marked the first time they'd acted together since "The Love Boat," and Lange admitted he was nervous about whether the'd still have the same chemistry they'd shared as actors in their sitcom days. "You don't know if it's still there, you don't know if it's still going to work," Lange told Syracuse.com. Once they hit the stage together, however, it proved to be just like old times. "We're rockin' and rollin'," Lange gushed "It's still there. I trust him, he trusts me. It's magic." Lange went on to direct Grandy in a one-man show, "Give 'Em Hell, Harry."