The son of the Queen of Country Music charted 21 singles, but TV audiences knew him as the radio operator aboard the PT-73.
Bobby Wright, the actor and country singer who spent four seasons on ABC’s World War II sitcom “McHale’s Navy,” died Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, at his home in Madison, Tenn., his family announced. He was 84. No cause of death was given.
Wright “passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones,” the family obituary said.
Billed as John Wright on ABC
Set aboard U.S. Navy boat PT-73 in the Pacific during World War II, the hit comedy ran from 1962 to 1966 and starred Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine. It launched the career of Tim Conway, later of “The Carol Burnett Show.” Wright, credited on the series as John Wright, played Willy Moss, the sailor working the radio.
He carried the part to the big screen twice, reprising Willy Moss in the 1964 feature “McHale’s Navy” and in the sequel “McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force.”
The Show That Never Happened
John Robert Wright Jr. was born March 30, 1942, in Charleston, W.Va., one of three children. The family moved to Nashville in 1958, when his parents became headliners at the Grand Ole Opry. He graduated from Madison High School, where he played baseball, basketball and football.
Television came to him sideways. Wright screen-tested for a role as a Southern youngster who could play the guitar, and the show did not move forward. A producer on “McHale’s Navy” saw the test anyway.
Where the Real Ambition Was
Acting was always the side job; music was where his real ambitions lay. Wright first performed professionally at eight, playing guitar and singing with his parents on “Louisiana Hayride,” the radio show that launched Elvis Presley’s career. He also played bass, trumpet and drums.
He recorded for Decca, ABC and United Artists Records from 1967-79, and 21 of his singles reached Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. The biggest was “Here I Go Again,” which peaked at No. 13 in 1971. Others included “Lay Some Happiness on Me,” “Everybody Needs a Rainbow,” “Lovin’ Someone on My Mind,” “I’m Turning You Loose” and a country cover of Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun.”
The music never waited for the sitcom to wrap. While the comedy was still in production, Wright worked with his mother on one of her 1965 albums.
Touring Until His Mother Retired
That mother was Kitty Wells, the “Queen of Country Music,” a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and country’s first female superstar, with nearly three dozen Top 10 hits from 1952-65, among them the No. 1 smash “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” His father, Johnnie Wright, toured the South in the act Johnnie & Jack, with Wells often performing alongside them.
Wright appeared for years with his parents and his sisters, Ruby and Carol Sue, both singers, on the syndicated “Kitty Wells Family Show.” He toured with his parents until they retired from the road in 2007.
Johnnie Wright died in 2011 at 97. Wells died in 2012 at 92, of complications from a stroke.
Survivors include his sister, Carol Sue; his children, LeAnn and Kamela; his grandchildren, Austin, Cassidy, Shelby and Dalton; his great-grandchildren, Hayden, Pazlee, Remi, Fletcher and Axel; his nieces and nephews, Kitty, John Jr., David, Corrie and Stephanie; and his former wife, Brenda.
Wright turned up in all 138 episodes of “McHale’s Navy,” every week of its four-season run. His obituary says he was the last of the cast still living.
