Airman Who Inspired Robin Williams' Character In 'Good Morning, Vietnam' Dies At 79

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Adrian Cronauer, the man whose military radio antics inspired a character played by Robin Williams in the film “Good Morning, Vietnam,” has died. He was 79.

Mary Muse, the wife of his stepson Michael Muse, confirmed Thursday that Cronauer died Wednesday after a long illness. He had lived in Troutville, Virginia.

During his service as a U.S. Air Force sergeant in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966, Cronauer opened his Armed Forces Radio show with the phrase, “Goooooood morning, Vietnam!”

Williams made the refrain famous in the 1987 film, loosely based on Cronauer’s time in Saigon.

The film was a departure from other Vietnam war movies that focused on bloody realism, such as the Academy Award-winning “Platoon.” Instead, it was about irreverent youth in the 1960s fighting the military establishment.

The rest is what he delicately called “good script crafting.”

When the film was released, the presidential campaign of Democrat Jesse Jackson called asking if Cronauer would help out. The conversation died quickly after Cronauer asked the caller if she realized he was a Republican.

In 1992, George H. W. Bush ’s re-election campaign taped a TV ad slamming Bill Clinton’s draft record. In the ad, Cronauer accused Clinton of lying.

“In many ways, I’m a very conservative guy,” he said. “A lifelong, card-carrying Republican can’t be that much of an anti-establishment type.”

Cronauer was from Pittsburgh, the son of a steelworker and a schoolteacher. He spent 21 years in television, advertising, teaching and freelancing before attending the law school at the University of Pennsylvania and going into the legal profession.

He worked in communications law and went on to handle prisoner-of-war issues for the Pentagon.

“I always was a bit of an iconoclast, as Robin (Williams) was in the film,” Cronauer told the AP in 1999. “But I was not anti-military, or anti-establishment. I was anti-stupidity. And you certainly do run into a lot of stupidity in the military.”