Robert Hogan, ‘Law & Order’ and ‘Peyton Place’ Actor, Dead at 87

Robert Hogan, a veteran TV actor well known for shows like Law & Order, Peyton Place and The Wire, has died at the age of 87. Hogan’s family announced in an obituary that he passed away in his home on the coast of Maine on May 27 from complications from pneumonia. He was diagnosed with Vascular Alzheimer’s disease in 2013.

The 87-year-old appeared on more than 100 television shows over the course of his six-decade career. Starting in the 1960s, he appeared in Hazel, The Donna Reed Show, Gomer Pyle: USMC, Peyton Place and The Twilight Zone. In the ’70s he appeared in I Dream of Jeannie, General Hospital, Gunsmoke, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Hawaii Five-O. He also appeared in Laverne & Shirley, One Day at a Time, Magnum, P.I., Cosby, The Wire and three Law & Order episodes in the early aughts.

The show Hogan’s Heroes was named after Hogan by his longtime friend and the show’s co-creator, Bernard Fein. Bob Crane played the fictional Robert Hogan on the series, on which the real Robert Hogan made a few guest appearances. Also known as a theater actor, Hogan was part of the original stage cast for Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men, which Sorkin then adapted into the 1992 movie starring Demi Moore, Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. In Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton character shouted out Hogan and praised his work while watching an episode of The F.B.I.

The New York native was born in Jamaica, Queens, as the youngest of three kids. He eventually joined the Army to serve in Korea and was honorably discharged before he returned home to New York to study engineering at NYU. He quickly transitioned into acting after a professor encouraged him to take an aptitude test and was accepted into New York’s prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

In his obituary, his family wrote that he was “determined to successfully LIVE with” his Vascular Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and that “with support from his wife, novelist Mary Hogan, and multiple resources from organizations … he was able to work and thrive many years after his diagnosis. No small feat for an actor who memorized lines for a living.”

Hogan is survived by his wife of 38 years, Mary Hogan, three children from a previous marriage to artist Shannon Hogan — Chris, Stephen and Jud — and two grandchildren — Susanna and Liam. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to two not-for-profit organizations “that gave [Hogan] a fulfilling later life”: DOROT in New York City and the Alzheimer’s Association.