Interview: The Love Boat's Ted Lange, Fred Grandy, and Jill Whelan Set Sail for Lady Patriot

There are certain ships in the Princess Cruises fleet whose horn blares the theme of The Love Boat. It’s a sweet little tribute to the much-loved television show, which followed the romantic, mysterious, and chaotic intermingling of passengers and crew aboard the MS Pacific Princess.

The Love Boat, which ran for 10 seasons between 1977-1986, is one of those TV shows that people still look upon fondly; Princess routinely does special sailings where fans can participate in Love Boat-themed activities and meet cast members including Fred Grandy (“Your Yeoman Purser”), Ted Lange (“Your Bartender,”) and Jill Whelan (“Vicki”).

It’s been nearly 50 years, and Grandy, Lange, and Whelan are still thick as thieves. Occasionally, she’ll cook for them. Even more frequently, they’ll act together in various plays, many of which Lange has written. Their latest collaboration is Lange’s Lady Patriot (September 6-20 off-Broadway at Theatre Row), inspired by the true story of Mary Bowser, an enslaved Black woman who worked as a Union spy while serving as a maid in the household of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Grandy and Whelan costar, while Lange takes the director’s chair.

Lady Patriot is about as far from the sunny seas as you can get, but it’s an exciting and new venture that these old pals are very excited about.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I just got off a Princess cruise with my family and you guys are all over that ship.
Fred Grandy: Where did you go?

We did Boston to Canada.
Fred: Oh, that’s what we did last year. We did a Love Boat reunion cruise. Halifax and Saint John, right?

Yeah, it was lovely. Obviously, this play is very different than that.
Jill Whelan: Slightly.

Ted, what interested you in writing about this subject?
Ted Lange: I play poker every Tuesday night in the Valley with some old timers. One is a screenwriter named Jack Kaplan. He brought me a book called Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, about a southern white woman, aristocracy, who was a spy for the Yankees. Not the baseball team.

Jill: Oh, my God.

Ted: Three months went by. Then six months. Then nine months. And he got frustrated. He said “Hey, man, when are you going to read this book?” I said “Jack, I’ve been very busy.” And he said, “So you don’t know about Mary Bowser.” And I said, “Who’s Mary Bowser?” He said, “Well, she was a slave girl that was put in Jefferson Davis’s house by Elizabeth Van Lew,” who the book is about. And I said “Jack, why didn’t you say something?” He said, ” I wanted you to discover it and think that you found it on your own.”

I sat down immediately and read it and the story just dropped down. I wrote the play almost in one sitting. I did a lot of cross-referencing and I ended up with about 27 books on the Civil War from different points of view and I worked it all into the play. The more I got into it, the more fascinating the tale becomes.

Are the three of you a package deal when it comes to working these days?
Ted: Not entirely, but I like working with Fred, I like working with Jill, and so I wanted them to do this play.

Jill: They like to work with me because I cook for them.

Fred: That’s really the incentive to bring her along. That’s what she did in Michigan when we did I’m Not Rappaport together.

Ted: We had great meals in Michigan, and I didn’t want to give that up. We needed a great actor and a great chef. Anyway, I had the perfect part for her, the perfect part for him, and I asked them if they would do it because they’re my friends. I’m not paying them. They’re not getting top dollar from me. But they’re they all came aboard, which is very sweet.

Fred: I’ll tell you, when we were going to do I’m Not Rappaport in Michigan, I said to Ted, “What about Jill for the role of the daughter,” which is a very good role. Now, important to know, we had not worked with her since she was 14. And as you probably know, there are not a lot of child actors that necessarily grow up to be accomplished adult actors, so it was something of a risk. But that concern was pretty much ameliorated the first day of rehearsal.

Jill: Excuse me, I’m going to go look up the word ameliorated now.

Fred: And after that, we said “Well, this is a nice little ensemble.”

Ted: The thing is this, we all had immediate chemistry, and that has not gone away. We’ve taken cruises together and not gotten on each other’s nerves. That’s a hell of a thing.

Jill: And I also think, for the three of us, there’s a shorthand that we have because of the familiarity. Along with that, we trust each other, which only comes over time. You can build it with other actors that you don’t know, and it’s glorious when you find it, but when you come in with it already, not only does it move the process along a little father, but it allows you to take risks that maybe you wouldn’t take as quickly with people you don’t know as well.

Fred: This is not to suggest that we are experts at trust. There are seven marriages among us.

Jill: So, we know what we don’t like.

Fred: But this is a relationship that’s lasted longer than all of them.

Ted: And I know they’re going to do their homework. We only have two weeks, so I told them they have to come in off-book, which Fred and Jill do anyway. When we were getting ready to do Rappaport, I started memorizing six months before. And my wife says, “Why are you memorizing?” I said, “You don’t understand. Fred Grandy’s coming in off-book, so I got to be off book.” Plus, he eats Prevagen like it’s M&Ms.

Obviously, The Love Boat still plays a big part in your lives.
Fred: We’re also doing a podcast together which we just sold to Princess, so they’re going to help underwrite it. It will essentially be finding all the old Love Boat guest stars, those that are still alive, and finding out what they’re doing. We’re going to be starting that when this project is over.

What are the reunion cruises like?
Fred: First of all, you’re surrounded by 3,500 adoring fans. Can’t beat that. You don’t sit around and say “Oh, no, all this adoration!” I mean, nobody goes into this business to become anonymous, right? So, the fact that people are still revelling in this show 50 years after it premiered, what does that tell you?

Ted: We will bump into grandpas and grandmas and their grandkids will say “Why are you bothering that person?” But they have that memory of our show from when we were first on the air. We’ll give out autographs and take selfies because they loved the show.

Jill: What people tell us more than anything is that this was the kind of show they could watch with their grandparents. It harkens back to their childhood and family time. It’s a very sentimental thing. Sometimes people get quite emotional about it, which is really sweet.

Fred: It’s also something of a commentary on the present nature of television. I don’t think there are many shows that make you feel good anymore. The Love Boat did and does. That’s why the reruns have been essentially sending us residuals for all this time.