Jack Jones, Velvety Crooner Best Known for ‘Wives and Lovers’ and ‘The Love Boat’ Theme, Dies at 86

Jack Jones — the velvet-voiced crooner who had such hits as “Wives and Lovers” and “The Impossible Dream (The Quest),” but may be best-known today for singing TV’s The Love Boat theme — died on Wednesday at Eisenhower Medical in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 86. His wife, Eleonara Jones, said the cause of his death was leukemia, which he had battled for two years.

Jones’ death comes just seven months after Steve Lawrence, another singer of similar quality and style, died at 88. They were two of the finest singers of what was then known as easy listening music – music that fell out of favor as rock boomed in the late 1960s and 1970s. That music has seen a rebirth in recent decades under a new branding — traditional pop — with such new stars as Michael Bublé.

Jones had three No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart (now known as Adult Contemporary): “The Race Is On” (1965), “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” (1966) and “Lady” (1967). Jones received a Grammy nod for best vocal performance, male for “The Impossible Dream,” the standout ballad from the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha. The song also received a Grammy nod for song of the year.

Earlier in the 1960s, Jones won two Grammys for best vocal performance, male for Tony Velona’s “Lollipops and Roses” and Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Wives and Lovers.”

The latter song, which reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1964, was also nominated for Grammys for record and song of the year. The lyrics — which warn women “Don’t think because there’s a ring on your finger/ You needn’t try anymore” — are now seen as hopelessly sexist. But if you can get past that, it’s one of Bacharach and David’s best-sounding hits, with a jazzy arrangement and Jones’ suave vocal.

Jones addressed the criticism the song received by altering the lyrics to poke fun at men. But he never dropped the song from his set.

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

Jones had three top 20 albums on the Billboard 200: Wives and Lovers, Dear Heart and The Impossible Dream. The latter album remained on the chart for more than a year.

Jones, Lawrence and such other singers as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and Andy Williams were among the last singers of old-guard easy listening music in the 1960s, as rock increasingly came to dominate the charts.

As Chris Koseluk noted in The Hollywood Reporter’s obituary of Jones, “When filmmakers wanted to create that easy-listening ’60s vibe, Jones was one of their go-to guys. He can be heard on the soundtracks for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Goodfellas (1990), Reckless (1995), Duplex (2003), Bobby (2006) and American Hustle (2013), in which he had a cameo. ‘Lollipops and Roses’ accompanied the end credits on a 2008 episode of Mad Men.”

Jones sang the title songs of several films, including A Ticklish Affair (1963), Love With the Proper Stranger (1963) and Where Love Has Gone (1964). On the 1965 Oscar telecast he sang the last-named song, which was nominated for best original song. He opened the 1970 The Best on Record program, the final pre-recorded Grammy-branded show before the live telecast commenced the following year, by singing Joe South’s “Games People Play,” that year’s song of the year winner.

Jones sang The Love Boat theme, written by Paul Williams and Charles Fox, during that show’s first eight seasons (1977-85). (Dionne Warwick recorded it for season 9.) The song has elements of kitsch, and certainly the show was TV at its most mindless, but Jones’ dynamic vocal and Williams’ fine lyric (“Love/life’s sweetest reward)” were both work they could be proud of.

Jones’ recording of “Theme From Love Boat” cracked Billboard’s adult contemporary chart in 1980. His later AC-charting hits also included “Let Me Be the One,” a cover of a superb Williams-Roger Nichols song that was featured on the Carpenters’ 1971 album Carpenters; “What I Did for Love,” the instant-standard from 1975’s Broadway smash A Chorus Line; and “With One More Look at You” from the Barbra Streisand-starring 1976 remake of A Star Is Born.

Jones landed his fifth and final Grammy nomination in 1998, best traditional pop vocal performance, for his album Jack Jones Paints a Tribute to Tony Bennett. Bennett, of course, was one of the few old-school traditional pop performers who thrived in recent decades. (Fun Fact: Bennett’s “I Wanna Be Around” and Jones’ “Wives and Lovers” were both nominated for record of the year at the 1964 Grammys. Both lost to Henry Mancini’s “The Days of Wine and Roses.”)

Jones continued to appear at casinos, performing arts centers and cabarets until shortly before his death. Jones was married to actress Jill St. John from 1967-69. They were one of the top celebrity couples of their era, each with a highly successful career. (They weren’t bad looking, either.)

John Allan Jones was born in Los Angeles on Jan. 14, 1938. His father, tenor Allen Jones, acted in The Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937). Jones also acted in Show Boat (1936) and had a hit record in 1938 with “The Donkey Serenade” from the movie The Firefly. The elder Jones had performed the latter song on horseback for Jeanette MacDonald in the 1937 MGM musical. Jack Jones’ mother, Irene Hervey, was a film and TV actress who received a Primetime Emmy nomination in 1969 for an appearance on the long-running sitcom My Three Sons.

Jones, who lived in Indian Wells, Calif., was married six times. He was married to Katie Lee Nuckols (also known as the model Lee Larance) from 1960 to 1966; Jill St. John from 1967 to 1969; Gretchen Roberts from 1970 to 1971; Kathryn Simmons, from 1977 to 1982; and Kim Ely from 1982 to 2005. He married Eleonora Donata Peters in 2009.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Crystal Thomas, from his marriage to Ms. Nuckols; another daughter, Nicole Ramasco, from his marriage to Ms. Ely; two stepdaughters, Nicole Whitty and Colette Peters, from his marriage to Ms. Peters; and three grandchildren.