6:28 PM PST 12/31/2015 by
After he left the series in a contract dispute, he played another doctor on 'House Calls.'
Wayne Rogers, who starred as the irreverently cantankerous Trapper John on TV's M*A*S*H, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia, his former publicist confirmed toThe Hollywood Reporter. He was 82.
The actor later played a wisecracking doctor on another CBS series, House Calls.
In 1975, Rogers left M*A*S*H after three years in a contract dispute and because he felt the writers were slighting Trapper John's character development. Essentially, his character had become the straight man to Alan Alda's endearingly wry Hawkeye character.