Cynthia Lauren Tewes () is an American actress. She played Julie McCoy on the television drama anthology series The Love Boat, which originally aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986. Early years Tewes was born in Braddock, Pennsylvania, of German extraction and one of four children, to Joanne (née Woods) and Joseph Robert Tewes, a wood pattern maker. Her early childhood was spent in industrial Trafford, near Pittsburgh before the family moved to Whittier, California, when she was eight. Tewes attended Ada S. Nelson Elementary School and Pioneer High School, where she studied drama, winning Best Actress award for three years. Tewes enrolled on an Associate of Arts degree at Rio Hondo College, deciding to major in theatre arts. At college, she won "The Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Theatre", a one-year scholarship which enabled her to transfer to the University of California, Riverside, as a sophomore. In 1973, when her scholarship expired, Tewes withdrew from college and joined the Pacific Conservatory Theatre in Santa Maria, California, as an apprentice, making her stage debut in Arsenic and Old Lace and The Most Happy Fella before becoming a member of the Birdcage Theatre Company at Knott's Berry Farm, an amusement complex outside Los Angeles. Career Tewes' first break came in mid-1974 when she starred in a Lipton Ice Tea commercial, allowing her to join the Screen Actors Guild and register with an agent with the prospect to work on film projects. Tewes was soon cast in roles on the prime time TV series Charlie's Angels ("Angels in Chains"), Vega$ (My Darling Daughter), and Family ("Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...") as Jill Redfield, a disenchanted Pasadena debutante. However, it was her role in Starsky & Hutch ("Starsky and Hutch Are Guilty") as Sharon Freemont, an assistant district attorney, which brought her to the attention of Aaron Spelling. Tewes was cast for the role of cruise director Julie McCoy on The Love Boat, selected from more than 100 actresses who auditioned. She starred in the third and final pilot of the show, cast the day before production began on the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach. Tewes recalls the pilot episode: "I had to borrow money to get a new tire, because my ’62 Volkswagen Bug was not going to get to San Pedro…. That first day, standing there in the little outfit, and I had to say, ”Hi, welcome aboard, I’m Julie