NEED TO KNOW
Jill Whelan says there’s really only one person who knows former costar Charo’s real age aside from the Spanish entertainer herself: the person on set of The Love Boat who was in charge of the passports.
Whelan, who played Vicki Stubing on The Love Boat, spoke to Tori Spelling on the Wednesday, Nov. 19 episode of her misSPELLING podcast.
While talking about Charo, Spelling asked, “Is it true that nobody knows her age?” Whelan, who is 59, responded, “Well, yes.”
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“But my friend who worked on Love Boat … She actually had to have her passport information,” Whelan added. “So Elaine knows her age.”
Whelan explained that when Charo married then-66-year-old Xavier Cugat in 1966, she “had to be older” because she was allegedly “underage.”
“So that’s why it gets so foggy,” she said.
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After marrying the bandleader, Charo moved to the United States with him. Some speculate that the entertainer — who was then a flamenco guitarist protege — was just 15 years old at the time, though other newspaper articles have said she was between 17 to 20. The two divorced 12 years later.
A 1986 article published in The Los Angeles Times noted that Charo “cut a full decade off her age legally” by arguing before a U.S. district court in Las Vegas that her passport and naturalization papers, “which listed her birthday as March 13, 1941, were off by 10 years.”
“And she says in her act, she goes, ‘I know all of you. You want to know how old I am. You always say, ‘How old is this b—-?'” Whelan continued. “And I did remember, but I can’t … she’s gotta be in her late 70s, I’m gonna say.”
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Whelan recently reunited with Charo, who was a recurring guest star on the show, along with fellow costars Fred Grandy, Bernie Kopell and Ted Lange on Princess Cruises’ The Love Boat Celebration, which set sail out of Galveston, Texas, to Mexico on Nov. 16 for a seven-night sailing.
Grandy and Lange have recently been recording episodes of a Love Boat podcast produced by Grandy’s son, Charlie. The trio will revisit the series and bring on guest stars who appeared on The Love Boat during its 10-season run.
