Well, This Is What I Think

 

First of all let it be said that of the thousands of versions of Hallelujah performed since the genius Leonard Cohen wrote it, Tori Kelly nailed it at the Emmys as she provided the soundtrack for the In Memoriam section. She made the song her own, and her effort deserves to be added to the list of great performances of that seminal tune.

There were so many great names on the list of great talents that we have lost in the last 12 months. It’s always a sad moment. This year we reflected on Anton Yelchin, Steven Hill, Al Molinaro, the immortal Garry Shandling, taken from us so soon at just 66 and himself a three-time host of the Emmys, the ineffable talent of Alan Rickman who was also snatched from us ludicrously young before his three score years and ten were up, Wayne Rogers, David Bowie, Academy Award winner George Kennedy, Gene Wilder (we cried the day he died), and Prince. And the list rolled on.

But the name that caused us to gasp – as we hadn’t noticed his death in the news, and he was always a favourite of ours – was Wayne Rogers.

Rogers became instantly one of the most famous actors in the world for his role as Captain “Trapper” John MacIntrye in the ground-breaking series M*A*S*H, surely one of the most original TV comedy dramas ever written, and certainly one of the funniest. Millions still enjoy it today, in endless re-runs, and it is as fresh as ever.

What we didn’t know was that he was also a regular panel member on the Fox News Channel stock investment television program Cashin’ In having built a successful second career as an investor, investment strategist and advisor, and money manager.

Rogers was a prolific actor, appearing on television in both dramas and sitcoms such as Gunsmoke, The FBI, Gomer Pyle, The Fugitive, and he even had a small role in Cool Hand Luke. (The same movie where George Kennedy won his Oscar, coincidentally.)

He co-starred in various “Western” series, too.

When Rogers was approached for M*A*S*H, he actually planned to audition for the role of Hawkeye Pierce. But he found the character too cynical and asked to screen test as Trapper John, whose outlook was brighter.

Rogers was told that Trapper and Hawkeye would have equal importance as characters.

This changed after Alan Alda, whose acting career and résumé up to that point had outshone that of Rogers, was cast as Hawkeye and proved to be more popular with the audience. Rogers did, however, very much enjoy working with Alda – who continues to enjoy a stellar career – and with the rest of the cast as a whole (Alda and Rogers quickly became close friends), but eventually chafed that the writers were devoting the show’s best humorous and dramatic moments to Alda.

When the writers took the liberty of making Alda’s Hawkeye a thoracic surgeon in the episode “Dear Dad” (December 17, 1972) even though Trapper was the unit’s only thoracic surgeon in the movie and in the novel, Rogers felt Trapper was stripped of his credentials.

On the M*A*S*H* 30th Anniversary Reunion Television Special aired by Fox-TV in 2002, Rogers spoke on the differences between the Hawkeye and Trapper characters, saying “Alan and I used to discuss ways on how to distinguish the differences between the two characters as to where there would be a variance … my character was a little more impulsive.”

Rogers had considerably reduced his natural Alabama accent for the character of Trapper. He succeeded Elliott Gould, who had played the character in the Robert Altman movie M*A*S*H, and was himself succeeded by Pernell Roberts in the M*A*S*H spin-off Trapper John, M.D.. In the end, after just three hugely popular seasons, Rogers left M*A*S*H. Mike Farrell was quickly recruited for the newly created role of B.J. Hunnicutt, opposite Alda.

After leaving M*A*S*H, Rogers appeared as an FBI agent in the 1975 NBC-TV movie Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan, and as civil rights attorney Morris Dees in 1996’s Ghosts of Mississippi. He also starred in the short-lived 1976 period detective series City of Angels and the 1979–1982 CBS series House Calls, first with Lynn Redgrave (both were nominated for Golden Globes in 1981, as best actor and best actress in TV comedy, but did not win) and then later with actress Sharon Gless, who went on to co-star in the CBS-TV crime drama series Cagney & Lacey with actress Tyne Daly (coincidentally, one of the House Calls co-stars was Roger Bowen who played the original Colonel Henry Blake in the MASH movie). Rogers also appeared in the 1980s miniseries Chiefs.

Rogers then guest-starred five times in a recurring role on CBS’s Murder, She Wrote. He also worked an executive producer and producer in both television and film, and as a screenwriter, and a director. He also starred in several other successful tele-movies and cinema releases.

Rogers began to test the stock and real estate markets during his tenure as a M*A*S*H cast member and became a successful money manager and investor. In 1988 and again in 1990, he appeared before the United States House Committee on the Judiciary as an expert witness, testifying in favour of retaining the banking laws enacted under the Glass–Steagall Legislation act of 1933. He appeared regularly as a panel member on the Fox Business Network cable TV and in August 2006, Rogers was elected to the board of directors of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc., a Fortune 1000 manufacturer of semi-conductors and electronic components. He was also the head of Wayne Rogers & Co., a stock trading investment corporation. In 2012, Rogers signed on as the new spokesman for Senior Home Loans, a direct reverse mortgage lender headquartered on Long Island, New York.

Reflecting his huge volume of successful Tv and film work work, Rogers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005.

After some years living in Florida, Rogers died on December 31, 2015 from complications from pneumonia in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 82.

Well done, that man. A good life, well lived.