The Alabama-born actor left the hit show after three seasons after a contract dispute but his wise-cracking character was one of the most loved

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Wayne Rogers, who played Trapper John McIntyre in the hugely popular television series M•A•S•H, has died at the age of 82.

The actor, who later became a successful investor, was surrounded by family when he died in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia, his publicist and longtime friend Rona Menashe told Associated Press.

As army surgeon Trapper John, Rogers swapped wisecracks with partner in martinis and mischief Hawkeye Pierce, played by Alan Alda.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Wayne Rogers, fourth from right, with his M•A•S•H co-stars. Photograph: Allstar/Cbs Tv

The two doctors blew off steam between surgeries pulling pranks, romancing nurses and tormenting their tent-mate Frank Burns, always with an endless supply of booze and one-liners.

In one typical crack, Trapper answers a question with: “How should I know? I dropped out of school to become a doctor.”



The series, which was inspired by the 1970 hit movie and combined situation comedy with dramatic elements, was set in a mobile Army hospital unit during the 1950-53 Korean war.

It initially focused both on Alda’s character and Rogers as Trapper John, but Rogers became frustrated as the plots began to give more attention to the increasingly popular Alda at his character’s expense.

Rogers left M•A•S•H in a contract dispute after the third of the show’s 11 seasons, departing at the same time as McLean Stevenson, another original cast member. Rogers said he had no contract and the producers wanted to impose one that included, among other things, “an old-fashioned morals clause.”

“It said that, in the eyes of the studio, if you behaved in an immoral fashion, they have the right to suspend you. Well, nobody defined an ‘immoral fashion,’ as it were - so it was at the whim of whoever ran the studio,” Rogers said in a 2012 radio interview.



Rogers said he told them that “some of these things I’m not going to agree to”, and that they responded: “We’ll, we’re a hit show. If you don’t agree, tough, goodbye.”

An Alabama native and Princeton graduate, Rogers had parts on many short-lived shows before M•A•S•H, specialising in westerns such as Law of the Plainsman and Stagecoach West.

In the years after M•A•S•H he returned to television regularly, with a recurring role in the early 1990s on Murder, She Wrote.

He moved beyond acting to see serious success later in life as a money manager and investor. In 1988 and 1990 he appeared as an expert witness before the House judiciary committee to speak in favour of maintaining the Glass-Steagall banking laws of the 1930s.

In recent years he was a regular panelist on the Fox News stock investment show Cashin’ In.

Rogers is survived by his wife Amy, two children, Bill and Laura, and four grandchildren.