The Worst Passengers on ‘The Love Boat,’ According to the Crew

With a slew of fading celebrities boarding the Pacific Princess week after week, it was inevitable that there would be some jerks floating around on The Love Boat. Two of the show’s cast members — Jill “Vicki Stubing” Whelan and Ted “Isaac Your Bartender” Lange — recently told the Still Here Hollywood podcast which passengers were the worst. 

First up, according to Whelan? That’s comedian Buddy Hackett. “He was just difficult,” she said in naming him one of her least favorite guests. She didn’t go into details but Hackett’s “difficult” reputation precedes him. During the filming of It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, for example, actor Marvin Kaplan feared for his life. “I was leaning on a couch, and he threw a knife at me. Threw a knife at me!” he said in Kliph Nesteroff’s The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy. 

“If Buddy Hackett wasn’t Buddy Hackett,” said comic and friend Pete Barbutti, “he would have been certifiable.” As evidence, he remembered the time someone in Vegas complimented comic Totie Fields. “That fat Jew broad! I hate her!” Hackett allegedly said before pulling out a gun and shooting her picture off the wall. Hackett also once told Joe Rogan to “shut the fuck up.” So yeah, difficult. 

Lange wouldn’t name the famous guest star who refused to shake the Love Boat actor’s hand after mistaking him for an extra. (The a-hole later made nice when he figured out Lange was in the cast.) That was the opposite of Lange’s experience with guest star Gene Kelly. “Don’t talk to Gene,” producers told him. “He’s a grumpy guy. Just leave him alone.”

Lange didn’t listen. While Kelly was sitting reading a magazine, Lange said, “Screw this, I’m going to go talk to him.” Kelly was exasperated when Lange approached, but lightened up after a question about dancing with the legendary Nicholas Brothers. 

Kelly reminisced with Lange about those dancing days, then invited Lange to join him for a drink after filming. “It was totally different. And on reflection, I said I bet everybody when they get a chance to talk to him talks about Singing in the Rain,” Lange remembered. “I had no interest in Singing in the Rain.”

Who was the worst Love Boat passenger? It would be hard to top Whelan’s experience with her other least favorite guest. Comedian Tommy Smothers “asked me to look for a roll of quarters in his pocket. I had my own quarters, thank you. But I think he was in trouble with the law later.”

Yikes. Whelan was likely referring to two sisters who sued Smothers in 1997 and 2001 for “alleged incidents of childhood sexual abuse while Smothers was married to their mother in the early 1970s,” according to the Tahoe Daily Tribune. They lost the case, and one sister subsequently sued Smothers’ lawyers for alleged smear tactics.

This was all news to Still Here Hollywood host Steve Kmetko. “No wonder his mother always liked his brother better,” he remarked.