“Wives and Lovers,” the “Love Boat” theme singer, was 86

Jack Jones, the smooth, Grammy-winning crooner who had hits with “Lollipops and Roses,” “Wives and Lovers” and “The Impossible Dream” before inviting TV viewers to set a course for adventure The Love Boathas died. He was 86.

Jones died Wednesday evening at Eisenhower Medical in Rancho Mirage, Calif., after a two-year battle with leukemia, said his stepdaughter Nicole Whitty The Hollywood Reporter.

Jones was born into a showbiz family. His mother, Irene Hervey, was an Emmy-nominated actress who worked in film and television for more than 50 years. His father, the tenor Allan Jones, played the romantic male lead Show boat (1936) and with the Marx Brothers A night at the opera (1935) and A day at the races (1937) and he had his own hit with “The Donkey Serenade”.

Eight seasons and more than 200 episodes from ABC The Love Boat Beginning in 1977, Jones extolled the virtues of romance on the high seas: “Love, exciting and new. Come on board. We’re Waiting for You” – with his theme song for the Aaron Spelling-produced series. (Dionne Warwick took over in season nine.)

With lyrics and music by Charles Fox and Paul Williams, the song added a new layer to Jones' decades-long career.

“Because of The Love Boat Theme, everything was great on ships after that,” Jones said Las Vegas Magazine in 2016. “I did six weeks a year. They gave me the best suite on the ship, and it was the SS Norway. We just had a great time.”

Jones released “The Love Boat Theme” as a single in 1979 with a cover of Barry Manilow's “Ready to Take a Chance Again” on the B-side, and the song became a concert staple. But that didn't mean he wasn't afraid to make fun of it.

In Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), he is seen performing the theme song in a cameo appearance as a lounge singer in a tuxedo. And when Sandra Bullock prepares for virtual sex with Sylvester Stallone demolition man (1993), she sets the mood by playing his song.

Known for his vivacious ladylike persona on stage, Jones was married six times, most notably to actress Jill St. John for just over a year in the late 1960s. He was also romantically linked to actress Susan George.

In 1959, Jones received his first recording contract with Capitol Records, which released his debut album. This love of mine. It featured his lively interpretation of the Steve Allen composition “This Could Be the Start of Something Big.”

Capitol, trying to turn Jones into a rockabilly singer, dropped him, but Kapp Records picked him up, and with “Lollipops and Roses,” recorded during his two-week vacation, he immediately landed U.S. Gold Reserve Gold. Air force.

Written by Tony Velona, ​​the romantic ballad proved ideal for Jones' velvety tone. The single reached No. 12 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, earned him a 1962 Grammy for Best Male Solo Vocal Performance and made him heir to Frank Sinatra's throne.

After achieving success a year later with “Call Me Irresponsible,” which Sinatra recorded, Jones received another Grammy in 1964 for “Wives and Lovers.” The peppy Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for record of the year, but lost to Henry Mancini's “Days of Wine and Roses.”

Kapp “put the melody on the B-side of the single,” Jones told the Los Angeles Times in 1993, “but disc jockeys turned it around and played it anyway.”

Over the years, “Wives and Lovers” became another of his standards. But with lyrics that basically instructed women to kowtow to their husbands in order to remain faithful to them – “Don't think that just because you have a ring on your finger, you don't have to try anymore” – it didn't aged well. In the 90s there were increasing protests to ban the song. Jones responded to the backlash by changing the words to make fun of men. But he never gave up the melody.

“Since it is a politically incorrect song, I will start with a disclaimer,” he said. “I hear that women still call radio stations and are upset that such a sexist song is being played. It's part of history now, it won a Grammy and I meant no harm when I made it. It shaped my career and I’m grateful for that.”

John Allan Jones was born on January 14, 1938 in Los Angeles. He said he arrived the same day his father recorded “Donkey Serenade” for RCA Victor. (His father had performed the song on horseback for Jeanette MacDonald in the 1937 MGM musical The firefly.)

Jones was still in his teens when he began recording demos in search of a singing career. In 1958 he shared the stage with his father at the Thunderbird Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

“I don't know if anyone has shown you my video bio, but at the beginning there is a shot of a newspaper in Las Vegas and there was my father and I was under him on a minor bill,” Jones said. “I got this clip from a friend, a drummer, who was helping a man renovate a house. They dug under the floorboards and found this newspaper, and it was the newspaper from when my dad and I played Thunderbird.”

They came full circle and appeared together one last time in 1980, appearing as father and son in an episode of The Love Boat. Jones recalled that the plot was based on a true story.

“Apparently it happened to Robert Alda and Alan Alda,” he said. “They were supposed to do something together, work together, and Alan stepped away to do something that was a big break for him or something like that.” And there was a breakup, probably a little less dramatic than on the show, that we made. And the idea was that the women tricked us into being on the ship together so we could talk.”

On the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, Jones scored nine Top 10 singles, including three No. 1 hits – “The Race Is On” in 1965, “The Impossible Dream” in 1966 and “Lady” in 1967.

Jones received another Grammy nomination for Broadway's signature song, “The Impossible Dream.” Man of La Manchaand another in 1998 for the album Jack Jones paints a tribute to Tony Bennett.

When filmmakers wanted to recreate the easy-listening atmosphere of the '60s, Jones was one of their go-to people. He can be heard on the soundtracks of Good morning, Vietnam (1987), Goodfellas (1990), Ruthless (1995), Duplex (2003), Bobby (2006) and American Hustle (2013), in which he made a cameo appearance. “Lollipops and Roses” accompanied the end credits of a 2008 episode mad Men.

In addition to his stepdaughter Nicole, survivors include his wife Eleonara, whom he married in 2009; his daughters Crystal and Nicole; another stepdaughter, Colette; grandchildren Grace, Mercer and Agnes; and his poodle Ivy.

He headlined Las Vegas for seven decades, releasing more than 50 albums throughout his career and performing into his 80s.

“I want a song to make the audience laugh or cry and make a very poignant statement,” Jones said. “Like John Sebastian's 'I Had a Dream.' The lyrics start with, 'I had a dream, I dreamed we were all fine.' That's such a wonderful thought.”