Jeraldine Saunders

Who He Was

Jeraldine Saunders was born in Los Angeles in 1923 and went to sea when cruise directors were men. She became a cruise director for Princess Cruises and has been widely described as the first woman to hold the job full-time for a major line. In 1974, she published The Love Boats, a memoir of her years on board, full of stories about the passengers, the crew, and the romances that seemed to bloom on every voyage. Television producers noticed. Three TV movies followed, and in the fall of 1977 the concept became the series The Love Boat, which ran for 250 episodes and was filmed aboard Princess ships, with the opening credits noting that it was suggested by her book. Saunders later became a nationally syndicated astrology columnist and lived into her mid-nineties, dying in 2019.

Why He Matters

Jeraldine Saunders is the reason most people have ever heard of a cruise director. The show inspired by her memoir introduced millions of viewers to the idea of a cruise vacation, and the industry's growth in the years that followed created thousands of jobs, including many cruise director positions that did not exist before. She also opened the job to women at a time when that was not a given. For young people, she reminds them that a career spent making other people's vacations memorable can leave a mark far larger than any single voyage.