Quantum Leap Actors You May Not Know Passed Away

A popular comic on the stand-up and talk show circuit in the 1990s, Dennis Wolfberg parlayed his quick wit and talent for wild-eyed reactions into six appearances on "Leap" as Dr. Irving Gushman, a.k.a "Gooshie." A computer scientist and MIT grad who helped Sam create and program Ziggy — the super-computer at the heart of Project Quantum Leap — Gooshie also oversaw the computer's mainframe programming. In keeping with Wolfberg's irreverent comic persona, Gooshie was also saddled with an unpleasant quirk: medicine had corrected his severe sinusitis but also left him with terrible breath.

An American Comedy Award winner in 1990 for funniest male stand-up, Wolfberg worked almost exclusively as a comic outside of "Leap," making only occasional appearances in other feature projects and on TV. However, he did write and star in a 1990 comic short, "Teacher Teacher," which spoofed his pre-comedy career as an educator in the New York school system. Wolfberg died of cancer at the age of 48 on October 3, 1994.

A prolific character actor who moved capably between comedy and drama throughout his four-plus-decade career, Reni Santoni gave a memorable turn as a tough Marine drill sergeant who hassles Sam while he inhabits one of history's most controversial figures in the two-part Season 5 opener "Lee Harvey Oswald." Playing the hardcase was nothing new to Santoni, who appeared in the 1983 Sean Penn drama "Bad Boys" and played police detectives partnered with Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry" and Sylvester Stallone in "Cobra." 

But he may be best remembered for comic turns in a slew of movies and TV shows, including a recurring role as the hygiene-challenged Poppie on "Seinfeld," and guest and supporting shots in "The Brady Bunch Movie," "Private Parts," "Can't Hardly Wait" and "Dr. Doolittle" (as the voice of Rat #1). Santoni, who also provided many ADR voices for TV series and features like "Groundhog Day," died at the age of 82 of complications from lung and throat cancer on August 1, 2020.

Max Wright turned up in two episodes of the elaborately-plotted Season 5 three-parter "Trilogy" as Doc Kinman — a small town physician whose son Will (Travis Fine) was caught up in a complex triangle of love and murder in the Deep South from the 1950s to the 1970s. His turn as Doc Kinman was a marked change from the majority of his acting work in the 1980s, which was dominated by his starring role in "ALF" as the perpetually exasperated Willie Tanner.

Wright, a Tony-nominated stage actor, also appeared in numerous features including "All That Jazz," "Grumpier Old Men," and "Snow Falling on Cedars." But TV was his most prominent showcase, and for much of the '80s and '90s, he was a guest player on series like "Taxi" and "Cheers," as well as a series regular on "Norm" from 1999 to 2001. Wright appeared opposite Norm MacDonald one last time in the 2005 sketch comedy special "Back to Norm" before dying from lymphoma at age 75 in 2019.

Actor Rodney Kageyama's appearances in three "Leap" episodes are relatively minor ones — he played Choo-Choo in Season 3's "The Leap Home: Part 2 (Vietnam)" and a cross-dressing bartender in the two-parter "Lee Harvey Oswald." But Kageyama gave his energy and presence to every role he played in features and on television and stage over the course of an impressive four-decade career.

A member of the renowned Asian American Theater Company and East West Players, he served as actor, director, and designer for many stage productions while also appearing on screen — beginning in 1976 with a filmed version of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" with Marc Singer. His most prominent role may have been the dedicated automotive executive Ito in Ron Howard's hit film "Gung Ho," alongside Michael Keaton. He would reprise his turn in the short-lived spin-off series. 

Working steadily into the new millennium, Kageyama gathered small but memorable turns in "Pretty Woman" and numerous TV series. An energetic, well-loved advocate of Asian-American arts and culture in California, Kageyama died in his sleep at the age of 77 on December 9, 2018.

Basso-voiced Lance LeGault began his Hollywood career as a stand-in for Elvis Presley, which led to bit parts in his musical features. Tall, rangy, and imposing in appearance, LeGault soon moved into character roles that played up his rumbling voice and rough-hewn looks: tough guys in "Coma" and the TV-movie "The Gambler," rigid military types in "Stripes" and on "Magnum, P.I." and "The A-Team," which cast him in a recurring role as Colonel Roderick Decker, who pursued Hannibal and his men in the second, third, and fourth season.

LeGault was also a natural for Westerns, and rode tall in the saddle as a ranch owner in the Season 1 "Leap" episode "How the Tess Was Won," which found him at odds with his independent daughter (Kari Lizer). He returned in Season 2, albeit in an off-screen and uncredited turn as narrator for "Another Mother." In the years that followed his "Leap" work, LeGault divided his time between acting and voice-over work for numerous commercials, video games, animated series, and trailers. His final screen appearance came as a hard-drinking truck driver in the 2013 indie "Prince Avalanche," starring Paul Rudd. LeGault died of heart failure at his home in Los Angeles on September 10, 2012 before its release the following year.

Among the group of nuns who held boxer Michael Strasser's contract in "The Right Hand of God" was a familiar face to generations of TV viewers. Playing opposite Michelle Joyner's Sister Angela was Emmy-nominated actress Nancy Kulp as Sister Sarah. Kulp, best known for playing the conservative Miss Hathaway on "The Beverly Hillbillies," had appeared sporadically on television since the rural comedy took its last swim in the ce-ment pond in 1971. Kulp had been a prolific character player in films and television prior to "Hillbillies," but the sitcom largely defined her screen career, even after its cancellation.

Kulp had remained active in other fields, including stints on Broadway and as an artist-in-residence at Juanita College in Pennsylvania. She also made an unsuccessful bid for the House of Representatives in 1984, which was partially undone by a radio spot recorded by her "Hillbillies" co-star Buddy Ebsen, with whom she had an antagonistic relationship until shortly before her death.

"Quantum Leap" was Kulp's second-to-last TV role; a supporting turn on an "ABC Afterschool Special" starring Kerri Green of "The Goonies" aired the same year in 1989. Diagnosed with cancer in 1990, Kulp died of the disease on February 3, 1993.

One of the most offbeat and oft-discussed "Quantum Leap" episodes is Season 3's "The Boogieman," which aired on October 26, 1990. The Halloween/horror-themed episode features Sam leaping into a horror novelist accused of a series of murders in a small town. Assisting him in his search for the true culprit — who may or may not be the devil — is a teenager and horror obsessive named Stevie King. As you may surmise, the character was a young version of horror novelist Stephen King, whose books are referenced throughout the episode (a '58 Plymouth Fury, etc.).

Among those that fall prey to mysterious circumstance in "The Boogieman" is town gossip Dorothy Jaeger, who dies from apparent snake bite. Playing Dorothy is prolific character actor Fran Ryan, who appeared in countless feature films and television series from the 1960s to the late '90s. Ryan, who specialized in folksy, working-class types, appeared in everything from "Rocky II" to "Stripes" and "Pale Rider" while also logging an astonishing number of guest shots on TV. 

She played Doris Ziffel on "Green Acres," and recurred on everything from "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters" to "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and "Night Court." Ryan made her final TV appearance in a 1993 episode of "The Commish," dying of natural causes seven years later on January 15, 2000.

Every hero needs an advisor — someone to lend support and point out solutions or shortcuts that will assist the lead in completing their task or quest. For Sam Beckett on "Quantum Leap," that advisor is Rear Admiral Upper Half Albert Calavicci, USN, or just Al, as Sam knew him. A streetwise military man with seemingly limitless experience in every problem Sam faced while leaping, Al — or rather, his hologram, which only Sam and a select few could perceive — was by Sam's side for the entire series run. Along the way, audiences also learned about Al's backstory, which included multiple wives, numerous romances, and a struggle with alcoholism.

Dean Stockwell, who played Al, came to "Quantum Leap" during a major career revival. The former child actor, who had starred opposite such major Golden Age Hollywood stars as Gregory Peck and Joel McCrea, graduated to adult leads in the 1950s and shared a 1959 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor with Orson Welles and Bradford Dillman for their performances in the thriller "Compulsion." But Stockwell's career plateaued in the 1960s, and he dropped out to join the counterculture and pursue art. He returned to acting in the 1970s, largely in television roles, and was prepared to leave acting for real estate when director Wim Wenders cast him as Harry Dean Stanton's brother in "Paris, Texas."

Major roles in "Dune," "To Live and Die in L.A.," and a show-stopping turn in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" preceded an Oscar nomination for Jonathan Demme's "Married to the Mob" in 1988. "Quantum Leap" arrived the following year, and Stockwell netted four Emmy and four Golden Globe award nominations for his performance. When "Leap" departed the airwaves in 1993, Stockwell remained busy as a character actor in features and on television, most notably in a recurring role as John Cavil on "Battlestar Galactica."

Stockwell retired from acting following a stroke (via The Guardian) in 2015. He died of unspecified causes at the age of 85 on November 7, 2021.

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