You’re correct; McLean Stevenson left MASH* (and the character of Col. Henry Blake died) in 1975; Stevenson himself was just fine, and lived for another 21 years, dying of a heart attack in 1996.
As noted in his Wikipedia article, he left the show voluntarily, as he disliked being only one star in an ensemble cast (and playing second-fiddle to Alan Alda). As it turned out, MASH* was the peak of his career, and his later work is largely forgotten now (and, in the case of the really awful Hello, Larry, that might be for the better).
The recent version of Spartacus had the lead actor get cancer after the first season. They made the second season a prequel so that he wouldn’t have to appear and would have time to undergo treatment, but he died shortly thereafter. They then simply replaced him with a new actor playing the same role. Didn’t really hurt the show any.
I don’t think I’ve seen another show where they managed to survive losing the lead actor midway through.
Have to pitch in with my favourite cop show: Taggart.
The show started in 1983 and Taggart (Mark McManus) died in 1994. They had an onscreen funeral and the show continued to produce new episodes until 2010.
There haven’t been any new episodes since then, but it technically hasn’t been cancelled.
I did not know that Wendy Thomas was still appearing in new commercials. Apparently my television diet of SVU and baseball isn’t the market they target those at. Anyway, thanks.
Also, on Nancy Marchand’s death, one of the things I noticed the last time I watched The Sopranos through was how they split up her two main storylines (aging/senility and familial thorn in Tony’s side) over to Uncle Jun and Janice, respectively. Until then it had seemed clear that Janice was a one-season character they hadn’t really planned to bring back.
Two interesting cases from The Archers, the longest-running (radio) soap in the world:
When Norman Painting who played Phil Archer died in October 2009 they had a number of episodes already recorded, and the last episode he actually spoke in aired about a month later. Radio being what it is, they continued to allude to him being around until the following February, when his (radio) wife found the character peacefully passed away in his bed. Painting had been on the show since its pilot in **1950 **and was much loved; I still remember the funeral episode, where it was all too clear that the tears of the cast were not mere acting.
Similarly, Arnold Peters who played Jack Woolley since 1980 passed away in May 2013. The character was last heard in 2011 in a storyline about his rapidly progressing Alzheimers. This was made rather more poignant by the fact that the actor himself was diagnosed with the disease shortly after his character was (Peters was 87 when he died), and continued to record sporadically even from his care home. The character remains alive (narratively speaking) and in a care home, but obviously is never heard.
Back to television: Katey Sagal’s pregnancy was written into Married With Children, but when the child was stillborn at seven months the show basically put up a tribute card expressing their condolences and it was never really mentioned again. The next season they brought in a kid (“Seven” IIRC) who was some distant relation for Peggy to dote over.
Executive producer Robert F Colesberry had a role as Det Ray Cole and died during Season 3. IIRC on the show they stated the character died after collapsing while running on a treadmill. They then had a memorial for the character at the local bar. (Laid out on the pool table)
Richard DeAngelis played Col Forester and died of Prostate Cancer during season 4. I believe it was stated the character also died of cancer and the character had the same memorial at the local bar.
No, he kidnapped Harry cause Harry had started a relationship with his girlfriend, Vicky Dubcheck. The next season started with the other three Solomons tracking Harry down after he’d been sold to a circus.
True, in that situation they deliberately wanted to kill off the just the character, but it’s not that much of a stretch of my imagination to think that it’s a way to deal with a suddenly dead actor in a series. Frankly, I think it would have been really sucky if they put out a contract on McLean Stevenson just for the sake of realism.
And thanks for your praise of my enumeration method. A friend of mine who is a director at an international fast food chain will be using it in a presentation soon. Today, the Straight Dope, tomorrow the World!
A few (U.S.) national commercials per year should be enough to live comfortably with no other income, and leave one with with plenty of time to pursue other jobs. Even if being associated with the commercials made it hard to get other TV work, she would be able to do lots of fun theatre stuff without being poor.
I don’t think that the commercials ever mention the hottie’s name, so it’s perhaps not right to call her “Hottie Wendy.” Mostly they just show her interacting with co-workers and as is typical in commercials, is much more enthusiastic about fast food than anyone in real life.
This is a major headache for soap operas, with three usual solutions:
Kill off the character, usually of a heart attack off-scene (another character goes upstairs and comes back down looking dazed, announcing that John just died)
Send the character to somewhere else (John volunteers to work with Chinese orphans).
Simply replace the character with a new actor (Voiceover: The role of John Smith is now being played by Michael O’Shea).
When Colonel Sanders died, they just referred to him in the past tense and showed file footage with no voiceover for decades. It’s only in the last ten years or so that they hired lookalikes to impersonate him in the ads.
While that’s true, the fire engine red hair of both Hottie Wendy and Logo Wendy is pretty coincidental and Hottie Wendy’s first few commercials had her wearing a striped shirt, just like Logo Wendy.
The all-time best treatment of the “death” of a character has to go to South Park, when they killed off Issac Hayes character Chef. The took little snippets of previously recorded voice work and patched it together (intentionally, so no one would try to think they were pulling a fast one) with hilarious results. They even went to the trouble to “burn the bridge” behind Chef.
It was actually sad when IRL Issac passed a short time later.
I remember that scene was subject to real WORSE THING ON TV EVER vitriol in its immediate aftermath. Time has been somewhat kinder to it thanks to the high quality of just about everything else to do with the show, but it is somewhat unfortunate that they felt they couldn’t just have Livia die off screen.
Anyway, thanks.