Both passengers and staff have consistently found love aboard the Pacific Princess, but one of the The boat of love‘s stars claims that his character struggled to find a relationship on the show.
“We had a producer [who] he didn’t want to write for me,” Ted Lange said on the Jan. 19 episode. Still Here Hollywood Podcast with Steve Kmetko. “He didn’t want to write love stories for a black character.”
Lange, 77, said his colleagues Bernie Kopell and Fred Grandy noticed the trend and “got my back.”
“Fred and Bernie wrote a story, a love story, for me. Scatman Crothers and Vernee Watson, they wrote a love story for me because this guy wouldn’t do it,” Lange said. “And I also used to tell the guy, I say, ‘Hey, look. You have all the white characters at the beginning of the series, and at the end of the series, my character is gone.’ He says: ‘Well, you’re a bartender. What would you do there?’ I said, ‘Well, you know what? Bernie is a doctor. He should be in the hospital and the captain should be on the bridge. What are they doing there?’ He says, ‘Well, we’re not going to enroll you’. He says: ‘Look. You’re an equal star.’”
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The actor claimed the unnamed producer would do “anything to keep me out” of the hit series, a sentiment he equated with reporter Laura Ingraham telling LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” when the NBA star, 40, expressed political views in 2018 .
Lange said his late colleague Gavin MacLeod, whom he called “the greatest guy ever,” supported him through that time.
“He didn’t have to look after me. He didn’t have to do it, but he knew what kind of crap I was going through just as a performer, as a black performer,” said Lange Kmetko (71).. “You know, he had my back.”
‘The Love Boat’ stars (from left) Ted Lange, Fred Grandy, Bernie Kopell, Gavin MacLeod, Lauren Tewes and Jill Whelan.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
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Lange argued that Hollywood treats actors of color differently than white actors. “If you come into show business as a person of color, you have to fight battles,” he said. “They’re not quite the same as the other guy’s battles, but you still have to fight them.”
When Kmetko asked if that still holds true today, Lange said, “Oh, honey. I can tell you stories now.”
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Ted Williams with Vanessa Williams (left) and Gloria Gifford on ‘The Love Boat’ in 1984.
ABC/Disney/Getty
The father of two continued to tell Kmetko about his struggle to get the plays he wrote on stage in New York. “And I can’t say, ‘Well, you’re black.’ I can’t say that. you know?” Lange said. “But you know what it is.”
Lange had a similar experience with a script he wrote with a white comedian. “I wrote a play called One righteous white boy“, he said. “Do you know what it takes for a black entertainer to succeed in show business? What? One righteous white boy. And I did something.”
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Lange explained how he worked on the script with Jeff Wayne, stating that when Wayne submitted it, agents tried to remove Lange from the project. “This part is the dark side of Hollywood,” Lange said.
With Wayne’s support, Lange stayed on the project until they reached an agreement.
“I go through a lot of things like that,” the The ship of love said the star. “Am I bitter? Not. I’m not bitter because I know what you’re doing. I see it coming.”
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Source: HIS Education