After seven years as the beloved cruise director on the show that promised romance and adventure, this actress found herself facing intense criticism when she was ousted due to her very public battle with cocaine addiction.
Once adored as the charming ship steward on The Love Boat, the now 70-year-old actress saw her career and personal life spiral downward. After a period of turmoil, she reinvented herself as a cheese specialist for a catering company in Seattle.
Keep reading to find out who this actress is!
When The Love Boat first premiered in 1977, it delivered on its promise of offering “something for everyone.” Viewers eagerly tuned in each week to follow the adventures aboard the Pacific Princess, with a memorable cast including Captain Stubing (Gavin McLeod), his daughter Vicki (Jill Whelan), Doc (Bernie Kopell), Gopher (Fred Grandy), bartender Isaac (Ted Lange), and Julie McCoy, the ship’s friendly cruise director played by Cynthia Lauren Tewes. Tewes, just 23 at the time, won the role over 100 other candidates.
However, in the eighth season, Tewes was noticeably absent. Her character was replaced by Patricia Klous, who played her on-screen sister, Judy McCoy. In a 1985 interview with TV Guide, executive producer Douglas Cramer explained that Tewes had been let go due to ongoing issues. “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 disruptive,” he said.
Tewes was dismissed from the show in 1984 due to her cocaine addiction. In an interview, she candidly admitted, “All that money didn’t go into a bank. It went into my nose.” She explained that her first exposure to cocaine was when she was on her way to a party shortly after landing the role on The Love Boat. “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,” she shared.
In 2014, Tewes opened up further about her struggles with addiction, describing the intense guilt and shame she felt. “I secretly begged and begged for someone to help me. For me, it was an issue with cocaine in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when it was a popular drug, but if you ask anybody, I was the only one doing it in all of Hollywood,” she revealed to Oprah Winfrey.
Though she began her withdrawal in 1980, it took her a few years to fully recover. “I 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 explained.
Family Tragedy
After getting sober, Tewes shifted her focus to theater, where she could explore new opportunities as both an actress and a director. During this period, she went through two divorces before meeting Robert Nadir in 1993. The two eventually married in 1996, but Nadir was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) in 2002, passing away the same year at age 46. This tragic event followed another heartbreaking loss for Tewes when her infant daughter died in 1987 shortly after being born prematurely.
Though her career never fully recovered, Tewes made small appearances in TV shows like Who’s the Boss?, The Fugitive, and Twin Peaks. She even reunited with the Love Boat cast on an episode of The Love Boat: The Next Wave, where her character rekindled a relationship with Doc.
However, she wasn’t part of the Love Boat reunion aboard the Princess Cruises’ Sea Celebration in 2023, which featured several original cast members. Despite her absence, Tewes is still fondly remembered by her former co-stars.
Jill Whelan, now 57, has said that she often stays in touch with Tewes, sharing laughs and memories whenever they get together. “We should talk about our pal, who is a sister to all of us,” she remarked, adding, “She’s a very genuine, sweet human being, and a spectacular actress.”
Fred Grandy, who played Gopher, reflected on Tewes’ departure from The Love Boat, noting that “the circumstances of her departure were not so lovely.” He explained that in the early ’80s, substance abuse was not seen as a health issue, but rather as a punishable offense. “She was a victim of circumstance at the time because the attention and care she should have gotten was meted out in the form of discipline,” Grandy stated.
Today, Tewes is involved in a comedy-mystery radio series called Murder and the Murdochs and has found a new passion in the culinary arts. Working as a cheese specialist for a Seattle-based catering company, she has embraced a quieter life after her tumultuous career in Hollywood.
“I hope and pray that that’s all past now,” she said in a 2022 interview. “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 my own drive, and by making the choice to stick it through.”
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