Two-time Emmy nominee, improv veteran, and Emmy nominee, Charlie Moore also appeared on “Head Of the Class.”
Howard Hesseman, who was a well-known actor of off-the-wall characters such as Johnny Fever, on Cincinnati’s sitcom WKRP, has passed away. He was 81.
Hesseman, who died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Los Angeles, succumbed to complications from colon surgery that he had last summer. His wife, Caroline Ducrocq (actress and teacher), told The Hollywood Reporter.
Hesseman was a member of the San Francisco improv group The Committee. He also worked as a DJ in the 1960s. Hesseman is also known for his role as Charlie Moore, an out-of-work actor who became a history teacher on the ABC comedy Head Of the Class. After four seasons, he left the show to pursue a career in film.
On the ninth and final season, Sam Royer’s character married Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) on the ninth season.
Hesseman also played other odd roles, including as a hippie in Richard Lester’s Petulia (1968), and on NBC’s Dragnet (1967). He was also a patient with writer’s block on The Bob Newhart show; a psychiatrist on Mary Hartman and Mary Hartman; and a pimp alongside Dan Aykroyd (1983).
Hesseman was nominated for Emmys in 1980 and 1981 for his work in Cincinnati on CBS’ WKRP. The show ran for four seasons (1978-82). He was a countercultural icon with his moustache, shades and slouch.
Jay Sandrich, a veteran TV director, was hired to direct the WKRP pilot at MTM Enterprises. He suggested that Hesseman would make a great Fever character after Richard Libertini told him he couldn’t do it last minute. They had just finished working together on ABC’s comedy Soap. Hesseman played a prosecutor trying to convict Katherine Helmond and Jessica Tate of murder.
Sandrich stated that Howard had once been a DJ in 2001 interview for The Interviews: A Oral History of Television. He just stepped in to take it down. He knew exactly what was happening.”
Hugh Wilson was a former Top 40 radio station sales executive who founded WKRP. The fictional station’s call letters were punked on “W-crap” and the name of the station’s fictional station was WKRP. He once stated that he based the rock DJ off “a guy I knew from Atlanta called Skinny Bobby Harper.” He was the morning man, so Skinny had got up at 4 AM to get there. He also enjoyed going to the bars at night. He was Fever.
“In the pilot I said to Hesseman, “You’ve got gotta play it like your sleepwalking. You should fall asleep by 8 but that’s when you go out.”
He was the perfect man to host Saturday Night Live three more times, and for fronting music specials such as 25 Years of Motown or Supernight of Rock & Roll.
Hesseman described his iconic character in a 1979 interview with The New York Times. He said that Johnny might smoke marijuana, drink beer and wine, and perhaps a bit of hard liquor. He might also take what was for many years known as a diet pill on one of his hard mornings at work. He is an occasional user of marijuana and other soft drugs.
He was born in Lebanon, Oregon, on February 27, 1940. His father was an auto-parts seller and a musician. When he was five years old, his parents divorced and his mother married a police officer.
Hesseman graduated from Silverton High School, 1958. He then spent a few years at the University of Oregon. Then he moved to San Francisco where he was hired as a disc jockey on the underground rock station KMPX. After graduating from Silverton High School in 1958, he joined The Committee and took the Don Sturdy stagename.
According to the Times, he claimed that he was sentenced for selling one ounce of marijuana in 1963 and that he spent 90 days at the San Francisco County Jail. In a People profile from 1983, he admitted to having conducted “pharmaceutical research in recreational chemistry.”
One time, the Committee had a lengthy engagement on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. He and other troupers also made an appearance in Billy Jack (1971).
Hesseman was the lazy, boozy Red Dog in Shampoo (1975). He then appeared in The Sunshine Boys (1975), Silent Movie (76), The Big Bus (1976), and The Other Side of Midnight (77).
His character, Johnny Caravella, introduces himself to Andy Travis (Gary Sandy), the newly hired program director at WKRP. The pilot aired for the first time on September 18, 1978. He says, “I’m also known by Johnny Midnight and Johnny Cool, Johnny Dukes, Johnny Style, Johnny Sunshine, and Johnny Style.”
Johnny was fired by a Los Angeles station where he earned $100,000 per year for using the term “booger” while on air. He was fired from a Los Angeles station and was earning $100,000 a year for using the word “booger” on air. This led to him embarking on a journey that took him to Amarillo (Texas), Denver, Boise, Idaho, Fargo, North Dakota, and finally to Cincinnati.
He christened himself Dr. Johnny Fever after WKRP switched to a Top 40 Rock format. He returned to Cincinnati a few more times for The New WKRP, which aired a few seasons in syndication.
Hesseman continued to work in films such as Heat (1986), Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985), Gridlock’d (1997), Gridlock’d (1997) and About Schmidt (2002). He also appeared in Halloween II (2009).
He was also a guest star on Boston Legal as a judge, a radio station boss on That ’70s show, and a drug dealer on John from Cincinnati.
He was survived by his wife Grace, Hamish, and Chet. They lived together for seven year before they got married in July 1989.
