Jeraldine Saunders: Writer who created Seventies sitcom ‘The Love Boat’ and appeared on ‘Extreme Cougar Wives’

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Louise Thomas

Editor

As a young girl growing up in the Great Depression in America, Jeraldine Saunders could barely have dreamed she would become the American writer behind 1970s TV comedy series The Love Boat. Saunders, who has died aged 96, was born Geraldine Loretta Glynn in Los Angeles.

She was one of five, raised by her mother in a single parent family after her father’s untimely death. Her mother was a strong woman who taught her daughter the value of making the most of what you have. For young Geraldine, that was her looks. She worked as a model before joining Princess Cruises, where she rose through the ranks to cruise director – the first woman to achieve that role on any cruise liner.

However, it was her memoir of her time at sea, Love Boats: Above and Below Decks with Jeraldine Saunders, which would bring her to international attention.

Saunders’ 1974 book was adapted into a made-for-TV film by ABC. When that proved a big success, ABC commissioned a series with Aaron Spelling as producer. The comedy drama, which ran for 10 seasons and nearly 250 episodes between 1977 and 1986, was filmed on the Pacific Princess and featured guest stars such as Zsa Zsa Gabor, David Hasselhoff and Tom Hanks. The character of Julie McCoy, played by Lauren Tewes, was loosely based on Saunders herself.

The hugely popular series was credited with increasing the cruise business by some 3,000 per cent and made Saunders a national treasure. Only recently, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Southern California Motion Picture Council. Together with the Love Boat cast, Saunders was celebrated on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in May 2018. The horns of Princess Cruises’ ships still sound The Love Boat theme tune.

Saunders’ life off-screen had all the elements of a soap opera itself. She was married three times. First to Russell Phillips, father of her only child, then to astrologer Sydney Omarr. Shortly after her divorce from Omarr, she was engaged to actor Albert Dekker, star of horror film Dr Cyclops (1940). The romance ended in tragedy when Saunders discovered Dekker dead in his Hollywood home in what appeared to be a sex game gone wrong. He was covered in obscenities written in red lipstick. After Dekker’s death was ruled to be accidental, Saunders went on to marry Arthur Andrews, to whom she remained married until his death in 2003.

Despite her somewhat turbulent personal life, Saunders remained a dyed-in-the-wool romantic. In addition to The Love Boat, she wrote several romance novels including The Frisco Fortune and Spanish Serenade.

I first met Saunders in a lift on the Regal Princess – the Princess Cruises’ ship Saunders and the cast of The Love Boat launched to celebrate the cruise line’s 50th anniversary in 2014. Saunders was accompanied by her partner of 10 years, former Mr California, Donaldo Monroy. Saunders was 91. Monroy was 47. Immaculately dressed and coiffed, with jewels sparkling on every finger, Saunders could have given former Love Boat guest star Joan Collins a run for her money. Broodingly handsome, Monroy had an air of Antonio Banderas.

Alhough their partnership may have caused some raised eyebrows – Saunders and Monroy were featured in a show called Extreme Cougar Wives, where they discussed 12-hour long love-making sessions – their affection for one another was obvious. At the Regal Princess launch party, Saunders and Monroy were first on the dance floor. A year later, Monroy asked for Saunders’ hand in marriage. She turned him down.

In the weeks before her death, Saunders was still working. She wrote a syndicated daily astrology column, inherited from her second husband, called Omarr’s Astrological Forecast.

She was writing a proposal for a Broadway musical based on The Love Boat. She was updating Hypoglycemia, The Disease Your Doctor Won’t Treat – the book she dedicated to her daughter Gail Maureen, who died of the disease in 1970 at the age of 27. Saunders had also started a new memoir, based on her life’s adventures.

As her spokesperson Edward Lozzi put it: “She was a terrific, grateful, class act who refused to grow old. She was indomitable.”

Having been lucky enough to spend just a little time with Ms Saunders, I’d have to agree with that.

Jeraldine Saunders, writer and television personality, born 3 September 1923, died 25 February 2019