Ted Lange recently got candid and revealed that he was often treated as an afterthought by the creators of The love boat.
For those unaware, the 77-year-old American actor and director played the role of Isaac Washington in The love boat and was the only black guy in the 1976 sitcom.
While talking to PEOPLE magazine after setting sail on Princess Cruises’ Love boat Celebrating at sea, Lange recalled the time he spent on the set of the romantic comedy-drama TV series created by Wilford Lloyd Baumes.
He opened up about facing “racism” while portraying bartender Washington due to being “the only black guy on a white show” and admitted his co-stars supported him during the tough time.
The Friday Foster star recalled, “Sometimes they would short you, and by that I mean they were concentrating on the white characters, and they would give you scraps. And then my whole job was to make it fair — just make it fair.”
Lange highlighted that the white characters did the opening sequence “welcome aboard” and the final farewell in the first season of The love boat.
“And so I went to the producers, I said, ‘Why am I not in this?’ They said, ‘What are you worried about? You do this and you do that.’ I said, ‘No, no, no, it’s not fair,'” he recounted, recalling.
The producers seemed to brush off his concerns, but “underneath it was racism” that caused them to reject his requests, according to Blade alum.
“They said, ‘Well, what would you do there?’ I said, ‘What is the captain doing there? The captain was supposed to be on the bridge. What is the doctor doing there? He should be in the hospital. If you have enough creative imagination to write those guys in, you can do it for me,” Ted Lange elicited.
