Howard Hesseman
27 February 1940
Lebanon, Oregon
"WKRP [showed] something happening between people--there was something underneath about people trying to help each other out." -- Howard Hesseman, 1986
Howard Hesseman has been a leading counter-culture figure for nearly twenty years. He was a member of the improv group, "the Committee", for ten years in the sixties and seventies. He has been a character actor for many years on different television shows since the 1960s, and took small parts in "The Andy Griffith Show" (1960), "Dragnet 1967" (1967), "Soap" (1977) and "Sanford and Son" (1972). The role that brought him to prominence was Howard Johnson in the cult classic Billy Jack (1971). He has been active in movies and TV since. But my all time favorites will always be his rolls as Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP, and as Fred Nickells in Crazy For Christmas.
Actor Howard Hesseman, alias Dr. Johnny Fever of "WKRP in Cincinnati," sounds like he's in the wrong business: He says he doesn't like television, doesn't like to be recognized by fans and doesn't think much of the scripts of the successful CBS series. Nonetheless, Hesseman told the Cincinnati Enquirer he's an actor and he likes to work. "I can't imagine ever doing another series once WKRP' is over. But who knows? Maybe a deal could be struck; actors do a lot of things for greed," he said. -- BOSTON GLOBE, 1980
"Johnny Fever wore oddball clothes and didn't bother much with the conventions other people lived by. Howard Hesseman isn't much different." -- Notes from a Los Angeles press conference, 1986
In 1996, Ringo Starr appeared in a Japanese advertisement for applesauce, which coincidentally is what his name means in Japanese.
