Who Knew? 'The Love Boat' Was Adapted From A Poorly Written & Reviewed Book

[Brian Damage]

Jeraldine Saunders was a 27-year-old divorcee with a child to raise and a budding interest in astrology when she decided to change her fortunes by embarking on a modeling career. She had a rough start because of her age, and because she was curvy at a time when the fashion industry preferred straight lines. But Saunders kept asserting herself, and kept getting jobs well into her 40s. Then one day, after her daughter grew up and got married, Saunders worked a show on a cruise ship, and was so impressed by the hostess that she started sending her clippings to the cruise line’s main office, offering her services. Eventually, Saunders landed a hostessing gig of her own, and then worked her way up to cruise director. In 1974, she turned her experiences into a book called The Love Boats, a poorly written but entertainingly sordid collection of anecdotes about sin on the high seas.

The book received terrible reviews, and rightfully so. It’s disorganized and frustratingly coy at times. Plus, Saunders’ preoccupation with pop spiritualism leads to a lot of descriptions like, “Steve is a Pied Piper with planets in Sagittarius,” which Saunders presumes the reader will find meaningful. In 1975, though, TV producer Douglas Cramer read a pan of The Love Boats in The Los Angeles Times’ book review section, the day before his scheduled pitch meeting with ABC. Coincidentally, the ABC executive Cramer was meeting had read the same review, and had already asked the network’s lawyers to pursue optioning the book for a TV movie. But Cramer’s lawyers beat ABC to the punch. The network would have to settle for airing Cramer’s movie—called The Love Boat—in 1976, then airing the sequel in 1977, before booking a weekly hourlong series that ran from September of 1977 to May of 1986 (and then in syndicated reruns around the world).

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-l...holiday,73803/

[catlover79]

Hmmm...never knew that!!

[Marvo301]

I've known about that for a long time. I understand the series was much better than the book!

[robyrob]

my mom actually HAD that book - although i have no idea if she got it before or after the show aired

- that and she wouldn't let me read it when I was a kid.

[The Flying Dutchmans]

That's been common knowledge for a while. Even in the credits it states that the show was inspired by Geraldine Saunders who was the first female cruise director. In the first 2 hour episode of the Love Boat, the Cruise director was called Gerri short for Geraldine. But the actress who played her was not Geraldine Saunders.