The Queen Mary's First Officer Fell for the Ship at Age 12

Paul Jacek first gave tours aboard the Long Beach liner in 1980, and he remembers its AIDS-crisis years, too.

Paul Jacek was 12 when he first saw the Queen Mary, through the window of a car, and felt like he'd stepped into a Broadway show. Half a century on, he's the old liner's first officer in Long Beach, the Signal Tribune reported Oct. 30.

The ship he remembers isn't all brass and portholes. Jacek worked aboard in the '80s, during the AIDS crisis, and when a tourist once asked why he doesn't go to the wedding chapel, he told the Signal Tribune, the answer was out before he knew it: "Because that's where I buried all my friends." The crew, he said, looked after men their families had turned away.

That first stint began in 1980, when the Colorado kid who'd spent summers with an aunt and uncle in Seal Beach landed a job giving tours. Four years later he left for Hollywood to act and do comedy. He got the guide job back in 2023 and made first officer a year after that, a post that's part historian, part host.

The officer he measures himself against is Capt. John Treasure Jones, whom Jacek knew and said he hoped could see him in the uniform. Jones, the ship's 33rd and last captain, died in England in 1993 at 87, according to the Queen Mary's own timeline.

In 1990, when the AIDS Quilt hung on the ship, Jacek found a college classmate's name on a panel. He hadn't known. He told the Signal Tribune that life "is breath to breath. The rest is paperwork."

Source: sigtrib.com, retrieved November 2, 2026. Other sources: queenmary.com.