William Christopher^†

William Christopher spent a decade as a reliable TV guest, cycling through Gomer Pyle, Hogan's Heroes, and Columbo before the M*A*S*H call came. He wasn't even the first choice: George Morgan played Father Mulcahy in the pilot, then producers replaced him when the series began. Christopher stepped in and turned a peripheral chaplain into the show's moral center, going from recurring player to full series regular by season five. When he contracted hepatitis during production, Alan Alda wrote the episode Hepatitis around it, turning Christopher's eight-week absence into a storyline.

The M*A*S*H finale drew over 100 million viewers, which means Father Mulcahy was part of one of the most-watched nights in American television. Christopher didn't chase that. He and his wife Barbara co-wrote Mixed Blessings in 1988, documenting their experience raising their autistic son Ned, and spent years doing public-service work for the National Autistic Society. The advocacy defined his post-M*A*S*H years as much as anything he put on camera.

He studied drama at Wesleyan University and came up in theater before television. The Father Mulcahy casting is one of those rare cases where someone's offscreen personality ended up fully onscreen. He died on New Year's Eve 2016, the same date M*A*S*H co-star Wayne Rogers had died exactly one year before. Writer Ken Levine called him "a sweeter, nicer, more gentle man you'd never find." Loretta Swit said he "became TV's quintessential padre," which is a cleaner exit line than most actors get.

Christopher died at his home in Pasadena on December 31, 2016, from non-small-cell lung cancer, diagnosed about 18 months before his death. The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and NBC News ran tributes that day. Loretta Swit and writer Ken Levine both issued public statements. His death fell exactly one year after M*A*S*H co-star Wayne Rogers also died on December 31.