When it debuted in 1977, The Love Boat delivered “something for everyone.”
Fans watched Captain Stubing and his daughter Vicki (Gavin McLeod and Jill Whelan), Doc (Bernie Kopell), Gopher (Fred Grandy), bartender Isaac (Ted Lange), and the cruise director, Cynthia Lauren Tewes, who played Julie McCoy at 23 years old, every week.
In season eight of the hit TV series, Golden Globe nominee Tewes, who beat out 100 other nominees, was absent. Patricia Klous, who played Judy McCoy, her sister and new cruise director, replaced the star.
Douglas Cramer told TV Guide in 1985 that Lauren had serious issues, which led to Tewes’ firing. Not just recently, but throughout her seven years on The Love Boat… The disruption was terrible.”
Cocaine abuse got Tewes booted from the show in 1984.
“That money wasn’t banked. In the same interview, Tewes reported it entered his nostril. I wanted to join the gang. It’s embarrassing, but true. I used cocaine for the first time on my way to a party after getting the Love Boat job. My date said, ‘Let’s do drugs.’ I asked, ‘What the heck?’
“I felt incredible euphoria. Think you’re okay. You feel strong and fearless. I felt more courageous. It was like seeking bravery in Oz. Instead, I received cocaine.”
Tewes told Oprah Winfrey about her cocaine addiction in 2014.
“I felt guilty, shamed, humiliated, disgusted, and disappointed because I knew I had put myself in a situation I couldn’t fix,” she added. “I secretly pleaded for help. I used cocaine in the 1970s and early 1980s, when it was trendy, but no one else in Hollywood did it. I was alone and nobody helped me.”
In 1980, the 1981 picture Eyes of a Stranger actor began withdrawal alone, but it took years to get sober.
“I realized I wasn’t having fun, killing myself, and spending all my money. In the TV Guide interview, she says she stopped totally.
Family tragedy
After sobriety, Tewes turned to theatre to exhibit her acting and directing skills.
After two divorces, she met Robert Nadir in 1993 while in an Arizona Theater Company production. After a year of long-distance dating, Tewes joined him in Seattle.
“I decided to change my whole life, which has been a wonderful thing for me,” she stated in 1998. “The theater community here has been very responsive to me.”
Robert was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2002, after they married in 1996. The same year, he died at 46. Lauren had experienced family tragedy before. Her prematurely born 1-month-old daughter died in 1987.
Victim of circumstance
Despite brief roles on Who’s the Boss?, The Fugitive, and Twin Peaks, her career never rebounded. The Love Boat: The Next Wave reunited Tewes with the original cast in an episode when her character dates Doc.
She wasn’t on Princess Cruises’ last Love Boat at Sea Celebration, a seven-night themed trip with alums Kopell, Lange, Whelan, and Grandy, a congressman from 1987 to 1995. McLeod, 90, died in 2021.
Former coworkers remembered Tewes even though she wasn’t there.
Whelan, 57, said she often sees her old castmate, who will fly out for a weekend to spend time “cooking and just laughing and sharing stories all the time.”
“We should talk about our pal, who is a sister to all of us,” says the former child star. She’s a great actor and a genuine, kind person. I even look back at The Love Boat episodes and marvel at her ability to switch between drama and comedy. One of our favorites, we adore her.”
Grandy said she “has recovered magnificently” from her show termination and that “the circumstances of her departure were not so lovely.”
“In the early ’80s, substance abuse on a set was a punishable offense,” Grandy, 76, added. It was not a healthcare issue and was not understood as it is now. She was a victim of circumstance because she was disciplined instead of receiving care and therapy.
She appears on Imagination Theatre’s comedy-mystery radio show Murder and the Murdochs.
In her free time, the 70-year-old actress works as a cheese specialist for a Seattle catering firm.
“I hope and pray that that’s all past now,” Tewes tells LA Times. “I think I made the right choices by trying to stay in the business while it was trying to keep me out, by following my heart and drive, and by sticking it out.”
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