William Christopher, MAS*H actor, the last celebrity death of 2016

01 Jan, 2017 by Frank Lea

Print this article Font size -16+

Everyone thought Ronda Rousey’s career was the last celebrity death of 2016, but then William Christopher, the famed M*A*S*H actor, passed away at 84 from lung cancer. It’s been a long year full of meltdowns and celebrity takeaways, but let’s be thankful that he reached 84 and send him off with well wishes.

Hollywood Reporter stated – William Christopher, best known for playing Father Mulcahy on the hit sitcom M*A*S*H, died Saturday of lung cancer, his agent confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 84.

Christopher passed away at his home in Pasadena, with his wife by his bedside, at 5:10 a.m. on New Year’s Eve, according to a statement from his agent. He was diagnosed a year and a half ago and had been responding well to treatment up until a month ago, when the disease reappeared.

“Two weeks ago, he took a turn for the worse,” the statement reads. “Hospice began this week at his home, and he went peacefully without pain this morning.”

Mariah Carey’s botched NYE performance had a chance to drop a few celebrities itself, but it mostly made Dick Clark roll in his grave a few hundred times. What was the irrelevant washed up Mariah Carey performing for anyway? That’s as bad as watching a 58 year-old Madonna twerk her butt implants next to Ariana Grande.

If anyone wasn’t sure what M*A*S*H stood for, then here you go: Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.

M*A*S*H ran for eleven seasons, from 1972-1983, and I believe William Christopher was in all 200+ episodes.

He starred in Days of our Lives after M*A*S*H and The Smurfs. He also had a role in the movie The Fortune Cookie (1966), with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Matthau won an Oscar for Best Actor and the movie was nominated for several other awards.

Cheers to ringing in the new year.