Somewhere in the South Pacific in 1943, on an island called Taratupa, a crew of lovable con men ran a PT boat, a still, a laundry racket and a running war with their own commanding officer. McHale’s Navy marched onto ABC on October 11, 1962, to Axel Stordahl’s brassy “McHale’s Navy March,” and for four seasons and 138 episodes Ernest Borgnine’s Quinton McHale kept Captain Binghamton one step behind while Ensign Parker tripped over everything in sight.
The show began as a serious one-hour drama, “Seven Against the Sea,” on Alcoa Premiere in April 1962, and it ended up as one of the silliest and most beloved service comedies of the decade, with two feature films along the way. Last week, the final member of that crew passed away. Here is what happened to every one of them, in the order we lost them, ending with the man who outlived them all.
Is Joe Flynn Still Alive?
Nobody blustered like Captain Wallace B. Binghamton. Joe Flynn, born November 8, 1924, in Youngstown, Ohio, played the pompous base commander who dreamed of catching McHale red-handed, and his exasperated “I could just scream!” became the show’s best-loved line. He stayed close to Tim Conway after the series ended, joining him on The Tim Conway Show in 1970, and Disney made him its favorite stuffed shirt as Dean Higgins in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and Now You See Him, Now You Don’t.
Flynn died on July 19, 1974, at just 49. According to the Associated Press, he was found in the swimming pool at his home after an apparent heart attack while swimming. His voice was still heard after he was gone, as the villainous Mr. Snoops in Disney’s The Rescuers in 1977.
Is Roy Roberts Still Alive?
When the brass came to Taratupa, it was often Roy Roberts as Admiral Rogers, the one officer even Binghamton had to salute. Roberts, born March 19, 1906, in Florida, was one of television’s busiest authority figures. Sitcom fans also knew him as the banker Mr. Cheever on The Lucy Show, John Cushing on The Beverly Hillbillies and Norman Curtis on Petticoat Junction.
Roberts died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on May 28, 1975, at 69, as The New York Times reported in its obituary. His final film was Disney’s The Strongest Man in the World, which put him back on screen with his old McHale’s Navy rival Joe Flynn. It reached theaters in 1975, months after Flynn was gone.
Is Billy Sands Still Alive?
Billy Sands brought a Brooklyn-tough face to Harrison “Tinker” Bell, one of McHale’s loyal crewmen. Born January 6, 1911, he had already been a familiar face as Private Dino Paparelli in Phil Silvers’ The Phil Silvers Show, and after the war ended on Taratupa he kept working for two more decades.
Sands was the fight announcer in Rocky in 1976, and he turned up in Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety and on All in the Family and Happy Days. He died of lung cancer at UCLA Medical Center in late August 1984, at 73, according to his obituaries in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
Is Gary Vinson Still Alive?
Gary Vinson was the clean-cut kid of the crew, George “Christy” Christopher. Born October 22, 1936, in El Segundo, California, he went straight from the PT-73 to a Western sitcom, playing Sheriff Harold Sikes on Pistols ‘n’ Petticoats in 1966 and 1967, and he kept guesting on TV through The Fall Guy and The Incredible Hulk in the early 1980s.
Vinson’s life ended far too early. He died on October 15, 1984, in Redondo Beach, California, one week before his 48th birthday. He was the youngest of the crew to go, and fans who grew up on reruns are often surprised to learn how long ago he left us.
Are Jane Dulo And Edson Stroll Still Alive?
Jane Dulo, born October 13, 1917, played Nurse Molly Turner, one of the few women ever allowed near McHale’s operation. Viewers also remember her as Agent 99’s mother on Get Smart, and she was still working decades later in Beaches and on The Golden Girls. She died after heart surgery at Cedars-Sinai on May 22, 1994, at 76, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Edson Stroll, born January 6, 1929, in Chicago, played the crew’s resident ladies’ man, Virgil Edwards. A year before the show began, he had been Prince Charming in Snow White and the Three Stooges. Later he swapped Hollywood for the real sea, working as a licensed ship’s captain and marine surveyor. He died of cancer in Marina del Rey on July 18, 2011, at 82.
Is Carl Ballantine Still Alive?
Seventeen years ago today, the show lost one of its funniest men. Carl Ballantine, born Meyer Kessler on September 27, 1917, in Chicago, played the crew’s wheeler-dealer, Lester Gruber, but long before television he was famous as “The Amazing Ballantine,” a comedy magician whose tricks went gloriously wrong on purpose. He is often called the first magician to play Las Vegas.
After McHale’s Navy, he played Lycus in the 1972 Broadway revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and voiced the swindler Al J. Swindler on Garfield and Friends. Steve Martin said Ballantine “influenced not only myself but a generation of magicians and comedians,” as TheWrap reported. He died in his sleep at home in the Hollywood Hills on November 3, 2009, at 92, according to the Los Angeles Times and the Television Academy.
Is Ernest Borgnine Still Alive?
By the time he took command of the PT-73, Ernest Borgnine already had an Oscar on his shelf for Marty, and he had also served almost ten years in the real U.S. Navy. He loved the show anyway. “I did everything in ‘McHale’s Navy’ that I couldn’t do in the Navy, like surfboarding behind my ship,” he told Stars and Stripes in 2007. “The Navy didn’t like it at first.” Then, he said, the Secretary of the Navy told him he was “the greatest recruiter we ever had.”
Borgnine, born January 24, 1917, in Hamden, Connecticut, never stopped working. He flew Airwolf as Dominic Santini in the 1980s, earned an Emmy nomination for ER at 92, and reunited with his old ensign as the voices of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy on SpongeBob SquarePants, a pairing our story on the SpongeBob cast’s favorite cameos still treasures. He died of kidney failure at Cedars-Sinai on July 8, 2012, at 95, as CNN and the AP reported.
Is Bob Hastings Still Alive?
Every bully needs a yes-man, and Bob Hastings was Binghamton’s, the fawning Lieutenant Elroy Carpenter. Born April 18, 1925, in Brooklyn, Hastings went on to pour drinks as Tommy Kelsey, the owner of Archie Bunker’s favorite bar on All in the Family, and spent eight years as Captain Burt Ramsey on General Hospital. A whole new generation knew his voice as Commissioner Gordon on Batman: The Animated Series.
Hastings died of prostate cancer at his home in Burbank on June 30, 2014, at 89, according to NBC News and the Associated Press.
Is Tim Conway Still Alive?
Tim Conway was a local Cleveland TV personality when Rose Marie spotted him and steered him to Steve Allen’s show, and that is where the McHale’s Navy producers found their Ensign Charles Parker. The bumbling, sweet-natured officer earned Conway an Emmy nomination in the very first season, and the chemistry between the burly skipper and his accident-prone ensign became the engine of the whole show.
Born December 15, 1933, in Willoughby, Ohio, Conway went on to his greatest fame on The Carol Burnett Show, where he won multiple Emmys and routinely made Harvey Korman fall apart on camera. You can read about the stars from that show who are still with us today. He also created the tiny golfer Dorf and won guest Emmys for Coach and 30 Rock. Conway died on May 14, 2019, at 85, in Los Angeles, as NPR and Rolling Stone reported.
Is Gavin MacLeod Still Alive?
Before he was Captain Stubing, Gavin MacLeod was an enlisted man. He played Joseph “Happy” Haines for the first two seasons, and he was candid that the part was small. In his Television Academy interview, he called Happy “not much of a character” with “two lines a week,” adding, “Sometimes they’d have me stand there.” He left for the film The Sand Pebbles in 1966.
Born February 28, 1931, in Mount Kisco, New York, MacLeod got far more than two lines a week later on, as newswriter Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and as Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat. He died at home in Palm Desert, California, on May 29, 2021, at 90, as the AP and The Hollywood Reporter reported.
Is Yoshio Yoda Still Alive?
Fuji, the gentle Japanese prisoner of war who would rather cook for McHale’s crew than escape, was one of the show’s sweetest running jokes, and the crew kept him hidden from Binghamton for four seasons. Yoshio Yoda, born March 31, 1934, in Tokyo, made only a few more screen appearances after the series ended, including a 1969 segment of Love, American Style.
Then he built a whole second life. Yoda became a U.S. citizen, went by James, and spent about 15 years at Toyota Hawaii, rising to assistant vice president, according to The Rafu Shimpo. He died in Fullerton, California, on January 13, 2023, at 88, as The Hollywood Reporter and Rafu Shimpo reported.
Is John “Bobby” Wright Still Alive?
For nearly four years, the last link to Taratupa was the crew’s radio operator, Willy Moss. John Robert “Bobby” Wright was born March 30, 1942, in Charleston, West Virginia, and he came by his voice honestly. His mother was Kitty Wells, the Queen of Country Music, and his father was Johnnie Wright of the duo Johnnie and Jack. When McHale’s Navy ended, he left Hollywood for Nashville and charted 21 country singles between 1967 and 1979, the biggest being “Here I Go Again,” a Top 15 hit in 1971. He toured with his parents until 2007.
Wright died on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, at his home in Madison, Tennessee, at 84. His family said he “passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones,” according to his funeral home obituary, and The Daily Beast confirmed he was the last surviving member of the show’s cast. With his passing, the whole crew of the PT-73 has finally shipped out together, 60 years after they last sailed into our living rooms. Somewhere, Binghamton is still trying to catch them.
Alan Alda’s Hawkeye Rewrote A Dark Childhood Memory On ‘M*A*S*H’ That Most Fans Have Forgotten