David Ogden Stiers

The actor David Ogden Stiers  has died.

He will always be best known as Major Charles Emerson Winchester in MASH. This was an interesting character. Winchester was a Boston Brahmin, from an old line Yankee family with old money and old ideals. He was cultured and frankly, something of a snob. He replaced Major Frank Burns, a talentless, vindictive, ninny. Winchester on the other hand was the best surgeon on the base.  He and the other characters never really fought. They mostly just bickered.

He had heart:

And a sense of humor:

Yes that's Norm from Cheers.

Stiers spent most of the rest of his career doing stage with brief forays on screen. He played an orchestra conductor in The Man with One Red Shoe. We recall him doing cameos in Wings, again an orchestra conductor, and Star Trek.

My personal favorite, and you know where this is headed Gen-X, is as the straight man dad to John Cussack's teen in Better off Dead:

'I know you kids are really into the disco thing...'

Ave Aquae Vitae, David Ogden Stiers.