Jill Whelan went into some concerning details about her experience while filming ABC’s The Love Boat where she played the daughter of Gavin MacLeod’s Captain Stubing. Being on the 10-season show as Vicki Stubing and working with the late producer, Doug S. Cramer was a traumatic experience for Jill and her cast mates.
She recalled having “great fond memories of my cast and our crew, and executive producer Aaron Spelling,” but not Doug, who complained about her weight and had a reputation for “being kind of tough.” Jill told Steve Kmetko on his Still Here Hollywood podcast that Doug was a “misogynist” and “was not an advocate of women at all.”
Jill Whelan speaks out about crazy weight loss diet
Jill admitted to holding back on sharing her experience until now, saying Dough “was not a good human.” Aside from being a difficult one to work with, Doug was undoubtedly good at his job, having worked with the likes of Paramount Television and Spelling Television and on projects like Wonder Woman, Dynasty, Mission: Impossible, The Brady Bunch, and much more.
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The late producer died from heart and kidney failure in 2021 at his home in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Spelling Production’s Aaron Spelling described him as a man with “immaculate taste in art direction and wardrobe.” Doug also knew how to blow his trumpet, claiming that he was meticulous about everyone and every process on set, and had “more music on in my shows than anybody else’s.”
Jill recalled going to extreme lengths to stay thin in a bid to avoid Doug’s verbal and social abuse on set. As an 11-year-old going through puberty, Jill started to gain weight, but Doug was not having it. She was placed on a 400-calorie daily diet by a “crazy” doctor while making trips to a spa in Ojai to lose some fat as well.
She recalled the scene where Doug refused a full-body shot of her to show her weight loss because he was “pissed off she was fat in the first place.” Jill, who needed therapy after the trauma Doug put her through, was not his only victim; her co-star Lauren Tewes suffered similar abuse as Doug instructed the wardrobe department “to buy everything one or two sizes smaller than we are so that we would come in and be embarrassed in fittings with things not fitting.”