Wilford Lloyd Baumes, the television writer and producer who dreamed up The Love Boat and helped bring Wonder Woman to network audiences, died June 28 in Cincinnati. He was 86. Mihovk-Rosenacker Funeral Homes confirmed the death in an obituary published this week; the family gave no cause.
Baumes spent much of his career paired with producer Douglas S. Cramer, a partnership that shaped some of the biggest titles on ABC in the 1970s. He got his start as an associate to Cramer at Paramount Television on the 1971 telefilm Dr. Cook’s Garden, starring Bing Crosby as a small-town doctor with a dark secret.
The two later moved to Screen Gems, where Baumes worked on the interfaith sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie and developed the concept for QB VII, the sprawling Holocaust miniseries adapted from Leon Uris’s novel. That project collected seven Emmys and drew enormous ratings when it aired in 1974.
The Love Boat traces its roots to a paperback memoir by cruise hostess Jeraldine Saunders. Cramer picked up the rights after reading a review describing the book’s frank depiction of shipboard romance, and Baumes wrote every pilot that followed, including two failed attempts before Aaron Spelling cast Gavin MacLeod as Captain Stubing for a third try. ABC ordered the series, and it sailed for nine seasons, from 1977 to 1987, climbing to the No. 5 spot in the ratings during the 1980-81 season.
Baumes also produced the 1975 telefilm that launched Wonder Woman and stayed on for the first two seasons of the series starring Lynda Carter. His other credits include Sorority Kill, which gave actor Anthony Geary an early break, and Nightmare in Badham County, a prison drama that became a surprise hit in China.
Born November 24, 1939, in Amberley Village, Ohio, Baumes was the son of a Cincinnati physician. He studied at Denison University, earned a design degree from UC Berkeley, and served in the U.S. Navy before entering the industry. He stepped away from Hollywood in the early 1980s and turned to building homes later featured in Architectural Digest. He is survived by a nephew and niece. His family has asked that donations go to the Alzheimer’s Association.
