After seven years of starring as the cruise director on the ship that promised love, this actor was met with hate when she was tossed overboard for her very public battle with cocaine.
After sinking her career and personal life, the now 70‑year‑old star went from being TV’s most beloved ship steward to a cheese steward for a Seattle‑based catering company.
Keep reading to learn the identity of this actor!
When The Love Boat first set sail in 1977, the TV series fulfilled its promise of being “something for everyone.”
Each week, fans tuned in to watch the adventures of their favorite crew aboard the Pacific Princess, including Captain Stubing and his daughter Vicki (Gavin McLeod and Jill Whelan), Doc (Bernie Kopell), Gopher (Fred Grandy), bartender Isaac (Ted Lange), and cruise director Cynthia Lauren Tewes, who was only 23 when she began her role as Julie McCoy.
By season eight of the hit series, the Golden Globe‑nominated Tewes — who had won the role over 100 other candidates — was notably absent from the ship. She was replaced by Patricia Klous, who played her on‑screen sister and new cruise director, Judy McCoy.
Speaking with TV Guide in 1985, executive producer Douglas Cramer explained why Tewes was fired: “There were severe problems with Lauren. Not just recently, but for all of the seven years she was with The Love Boat… It was terribly disrupting.”
Tewes was dismissed from the show in 1984 due to her cocaine addiction.
“All that money didn’t go into a bank. It went into my nose,” Tewes said in the same interview. “I wanted to be one of the gang. I am ashamed to say it, but it’s true. The first time I took cocaine I had just gotten the job on The Love Boat and I was on my way to a party. My date said, ‘Let’s do drugs.’ And I said, ‘What the heck?’
“The feeling it gave me was incredible euphoria. You think you are fine. You think you are stronger, braver. I thought it gave me the courage I missed. It was like going to Oz and asking for courage. But instead, I got cocaine.”
In 2014, Tewes told Oprah Winfrey about her struggles with addiction: “I felt guilty, ashamed, humiliated, disgusted, and disappointed. I knew I had gotten myself into a situation I couldn’t get out of alone. I secretly begged and begged for someone to help me. For me, it was an issue with cocaine in the 1970s and early 1980s when it was a popular drug — but if you ask anybody, I was the only one doing it in all of Hollywood. It was just me, and nobody wanted to help me.”
Working through her addiction alone, the Eyes of a Stranger actor began withdrawal in 1980, but it took several years to become sober.
“It just sunk in that I was not having a good time, that I was killing myself and spending all my money. So, I stopped completely,” she told TV Guide.
Family tragedy After getting sober, Tewes shifted her focus to theater, which gave her a new platform to showcase her talents as an actor and director.
During this time, she divorced twice and later met Robert Nadir in 1993 while performing in an Arizona Theater Company play. The two dated long‑distance for a year before Tewes joined him in Seattle.
“I decided to change my whole life, which has been a wonderful thing for me,” she said in 1998. “The theater community here has been very responsive to me.”
They married in 1996, but in 2002, Robert was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and died the same year at age 46. It wasn’t the first time Lauren had faced tragedy — in 1987, she lost her one‑month‑old daughter, who passed away after being born prematurely.
‘Victim of circumstance’ Her career never fully recovered, though she made small appearances on shows like Who’s the Boss?, The Fugitive, and Twin Peaks. Tewes also reunited with the original cast in an episode of The Love Boat: The Next Wave, where her character was in a relationship with Doc.
She was not aboard Princess Cruises’ recent Love Boat at Sea Celebration, a seven‑night themed cruise featuring original cast members including Kopell, Lange, Whelan, and Grandy — who served as a congressman from 1987 to 1995. McLeod passed away in 2021 at age 90. Though Tewes wasn’t present, she wasn’t forgotten by her former co‑stars.
People reports that Whelan, now 57, said she often sees her old castmate, who visits for weekends spent “cooking, laughing, and sharing stories.”
“We should talk about our pal, who is a sister to all of us,” Whelan said. “She’s a very genuine, sweet human being — and a spectacular actress. I look back at The Love Boat episodes and marvel at her ability to move so effortlessly between drama and comedy. She’s one of our favorite people, and we adore her.”
Meanwhile, Grandy reflected on her dismissal, saying she “has recovered magnificently” and that “the circumstances of her departure were not so lovely.”
“This was the early ’80s — substance abuse on a set in those days was a punishable offense,” Grandy, 76, explained. “It wasn’t seen as a healthcare problem or understood the way it is now. To some degree, she was a victim of circumstance because the attention and care she should have received came in the form of discipline.”
Today, Tewes can be heard on Murder and the Murdochs, a comedy‑mystery radio series hosted by Imagination Theatre.
And when she’s not acting, the now 70‑year‑old culinary artist spends her time sharpening her skills as a cheese specialist with a Seattle‑based catering company.
“I hope and pray that that’s all past now,” Tewes told the Los Angeles 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 own heart and drive, and by choosing to stick it through.”
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