For four seasons, television audiences knew him as the sailor hunched over the radio aboard the PT-73, but the man who played Willy Moss always wanted a music career, and the son of the “Queen of Country Music” got one.
Bobby Wright, an actor and country singer, logged four seasons on “McHale’s Navy,” the World War II sitcom on ABC, and charted 21 singles of his own. He died Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, at his home in Madison, Tenn., his family announced. He was 84.
The family obituary said Wright “passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones.” No cause of death was given.
The Last Sailor of the PT-73
Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine starred in the hit comedy, which ran from 1962 to 1966 and was set aboard the U.S. Navy boat PT-73 in the Pacific during World War II. The series also launched the career of Tim Conway, later of “The Carol Burnett Show.”
Wright played Willy Moss, the sailor working the radio, and appeared in all 138 episodes, every week of the show’s four-season run. The series credited him as John Wright. He was the last of the cast still living, according to his obituary.
He reprised Willy Moss twice on film, in the 1964 feature “McHale’s Navy” and in the sequel “McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force.”
The Screen Test That Went Nowhere
Wright reached television through a screen test for the role of a Southern youngster who could play the guitar. That show did not move forward. A producer on “McHale’s Navy” saw the test anyway.
Acting remained the side job. His real ambitions were in music.
Where “Here I Go Again” Topped Out
Wright recorded for Decca, ABC and United Artists Records from 1967-79, placing 21 singles on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. His biggest, “Here I Go Again,” peaked at No. 13 in 1971.
He also charted “Lay Some Happiness on Me,” “Everybody Needs a Rainbow,” “Lovin’ Someone on My Mind” and “I’m Turning You Loose,” along with a country cover of Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun.”
He worked with his mother on one of her 1965 albums while the comedy was still in production.
Onstage at Eight With His Parents
Wright was born John Robert Wright Jr. on March 30, 1942, in Charleston, W.Va., one of three children. He gave his first professional performance 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.
His parents took top billing at the Grand Ole Opry in 1958, and the family relocated to Nashville that year. He played baseball, basketball and football at Madison High School, from which he graduated.
His mother, Kitty Wells, the “Queen of Country Music,” was country’s first female superstar and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. She landed 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 as half of the duo Johnnie & Jack, and Wells often performed alongside them. Wright himself spent years appearing 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 left the road in 2007. Johnnie Wright was 97 when he died in 2011. Kitty Wells died in 2012 at 92, of complications from a stroke.
Wright is survived by his sister, Carol Sue, and his former wife, Brenda. His children, LeAnn and Kamela, also survive him, as do his grandchildren, Austin, Cassidy, Shelby and Dalton; his great-grandchildren, Hayden, Pazlee, Remi, Fletcher and Axel; and his nieces and nephews, Kitty, John Jr., David, Corrie and Stephanie.