The son of the “Queen of Country Music” once screen-tested for a series that never got made, and the test ended up putting him aboard a fictional Navy boat for four seasons of prime-time television.
Bobby Wright, the actor and country singer who played Willy Moss, the sailor working the radio on ABC’s World War II sitcom “McHale’s Navy,” died Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, at his home in Madison, Tenn. He was 84. His family announced the death and gave no cause.
His family’s obituary said Wright “passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones,” Entertainment Now reported.
The Screen Test That Found Him
Wright had tested for a part as a Southern youngster who could play the guitar, and that show did not move forward. A producer on “McHale’s Navy” saw the test anyway, and the series credited him as John Wright.
The sitcom ran from 1962 to 1966, set aboard the U.S. Navy boat PT-73 in the Pacific during World War II, with Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine as its star. It also launched the career of Tim Conway, later of “The Carol Burnett Show.” Wright appeared in all 138 episodes, and he reprised Willy Moss in the 1964 feature “McHale’s Navy” and the sequel “McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force.”
He was the last surviving member of the cast, according to his obituary.
The Hit That Reached No. 13
Acting was the side job. Music was the real ambition, and Wright 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.
Wright recorded for Decca, ABC and United Artists Records from 1967-79, placing 21 singles on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. His biggest hit, “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.”
A Family Act on the Road
He was born John Robert Wright Jr. on March 30, 1942, in Charleston, W.Va., one of three children. The family moved to Nashville in 1958, when his parents became headliners at the Grand Ole Opry. He graduated from Madison High School, where he played baseball, basketball and football.
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, with 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 in the act Johnnie & Jack, with Wells often performing alongside them. Wright worked with his mother on one of her 1965 albums while the sitcom was in production.
For years he appeared with his parents and his sisters Ruby and Carol Sue, both singers, on the syndicated “Kitty Wells Johnnie Wright Family Show,” and he toured with his parents until they retired from the road in 2007. Johnnie Wright died in 2011 at 97. Kitty Wells died in 2012 at 92, of complications from a stroke.
His survivors include his sister, Carol Sue; his children, LeAnn and Kamela; his grandchildren, Austin, Cassidy, Shelby and Dalton; his great-grandchildren, Hayden, Pazlee, Remi, Fletcher and Axel; his nieces and nephews, Kitty, John Jr., David, Corrie and Stephanie; and his former wife, Brenda.
