Bobby Wright (John Robert Wright)

Bobby Wright, born John Robert Wright Jr., was an American country singer and actor best known to television audiences as radio operator Willy Moss on the ABC Navy comedy McHale's Navy and to country radio listeners for his 1971 hit "Here I Go Again." He died on October 27, 2026, at his home in Madison, Tennessee, at the age of 84.

Wright was born on March 30, 1942, in Charleston, West Virginia, the only son and middle child of country music pioneers Johnnie Wright and Kitty Wells, the singer widely celebrated as the Queen of Country Music. He grew up around the family business, appearing on stage with his parents at the Louisiana Hayride at the age of eight and joining their recordings a few years later. The family eventually settled in the Nashville area, and Wright graduated from Madison High School in Madison, Tennessee, where he played baseball.

Wright built two careers that ran side by side. Credited on screen as John Wright, he joined the cast of McHale's Navy for its full run from 1962 to 1966, playing the young radio operator Willy Moss alongside Ernest Borgnine, Joe Flynn and Tim Conway, and he reprised the role in the spinoff films McHale's Navy and McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force. By the time of his death he was the last surviving member of the show's principal cast. As a recording artist performing under the name Bobby Wright, he signed with Decca and later recorded for ABC and United Artists between 1967 and 1979, placing 21 singles on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. His best known release, the 1971 single "Here I Go Again," reached number 13 on that chart and became his signature song, alongside other charting singles such as "Lay Some Happiness on Me" and "I'm Turning You Loose."

Beyond his own records, Wright spent decades as part of the extended Wright and Wells country music family, which included his sisters Ruby Wright and Carol Sue Wright, both also country singers. He remained a familiar figure in Nashville's country music community long after his hit-making years, remembered by fans as much for his warmth and his family's legacy as for his own chart success and television role.

Wright's death was announced by his family, who said he passed away peacefully at home surrounded by loved ones. No cause of death was made public. Tributes in the days after his death focused on his place in country music history as the son of Kitty Wells and on his enduring association with McHale's Navy, with obituaries noting that his passing closed out the chapter of the show's original cast.