Gary Burghoff IS W*A*L*T*E*R

As we pen these words it is the 80th birthday of actor Gary Burghoff (b.1943), known almost exclusively for playing the character of “Radar” O’Reilly in both the film and television show M*A*S*H.

Born in Connecticut but raised largely in Wisconsin (hence that accent), Burghoff studied tap dance and drumming in his youth; he was especially ardent about Dixieland Jazz. Later he studied acting at HB Studios. Burghoff was only 24 when he entered show business history in 1967 as the title character in the original off-Broadway production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (which was produced at the now recently closed Theatre 80 St Marks, as it happens). In 1968, he was in a Las Vegas band called The Relatives, whose lead singer was Lynda Carter (a decade later he guest starred on her show Wonder Woman). In 1969 he was in an episode of The Good Guys with Herb Edelman and Bob Denver. The following year a couple of spots on The Don Knotts Show.

And then things really took off: the movie MASH (1970) and the hit tv series (1972-83), bringing with it the seemingly permanent Radarification of Burghoff. He fought valiantly against it; he appeared on episodes of Love American Style, Ellery Queen, andLove Boat. He did the talk and variety shows of Dean Martin, Merv, Mike Douglas, Dinah, and Donny and Marie. He was on Match Game over 200 times, as well as scores of appearances on Hollywood Squares, Password,Tattletales, and other game shows. I have a very vivid memory of him singing a torch song from the point of view of a woman on some variety show (I can’t remember what it was for the life of me) and both Burghoff and the host clarifying with some embarrassment that the actor was not actually gay. In 1977 he released a record album entitled Just for Fun. And he was in lot and lots of TV commercials.

In 1979, the Emmy-winning Burghoff left M*A*S*H when the show was still going strong. He starred in a couple of TV movies, did Fantasy Island, was on Love Boat again. But then he learned in no uncertain terms the ironclad law of nature that though many have tried, few have succeeded in actually leaving M*A*S*H. In fact the year after he left, Burghoff returned to the show for a “very special episode” in which Radar, missing the feeling of purpose that working in an army hospital had given him, just can’t tear himself away and actually COMES BACK to the 4077, provoking Hawkeye (Alan Alda) to yell at him to force him to leave. It was so self-indulgent and unrealistic that, though I was only a teenager, I practically ground my teeth down to my gums (I hated the show at that point). Anyway M*A*S*H turned out be like some kind of cosmic radiation whose strong effects zapped almost everyone associated with it once they left the set (apart from Alda, who directed and acted in movies). Star McLean Stevenson stepped into a succession of disastrous new shows. Wayne Rogers did okay, although his Faustian bargain included playing another funny doctor. Then Harry Morgan, Jamie Farr, and William Christopher starred on AfterMASH (1984), in which their three M*A*S*H characters all work at the same stateside hospital, a premise roughly as lame as Radar’s return to Korea. And then there was…

Yes, Gary Burghoff reprised his role of Walter “Radar” O’Reilly for his own starring sit-com, the footprint of which consisted of one single unsold pilot episode in 1984. On W*A*L*T*E*R, Radar has moved to St. Louis and is a caring rookie cop. By now, being called Walter instead of Radar is a point of honor with him, a gesture of empowerment apparently of a class with “They call me MR. TIBBS!” He’s partnered with Ray Buktenica, fresh from his role on House Calls with Rogers. A pre-SNLVictoria Jackson also had a prominent role in the pilot, as a daffy waitress who is clearly being positioned to be Radar’s girlfriend in the event the show went into production. To remind us who Radar is, his name is spelled M*A*S*H style with asterisks in the show’s title, and a good hunk of the pilot is weighed down with a faux news segment that tells his backstory since he left Korea, a clumsy, facile, and far-fetched device. But I watched this show on Youtube, and it watches better than it sounds. Yes, it’s terrible, but almost everything on television was terrible in the ’80s, and anyway it’s not nearly as terrible as AfterMASH. I can absolutely see W*A*L*T*E*R sustaining itself as a series anyway, with Radar as a sensitive, if oddly psychic beat cop who has a way with animals. Look, here he is with a small bird!

Haha, why not? Anyway, that wasn’t to be. Through the rest of the ’80s and ’90s Burghoff continued to appear on game shows, had a couple of guest spots on series, and appeared in a couple of TV movies. In 1999 and 2000 he hosted a PBS series called Pets: Part of the Family, and he basically retired after that.

For more on show business history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. And please stay tuned for my next book Vaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety, coming November 2023.