M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell was spotted out in Los Angeles on Tuesday, marking the first public sighting of the 87-year-old actor since the death of his wife, Shelley Fabares.
Farrell was seen on a stroll with a woman who appeared to be his daughter, Erin Farrell, whom he shared with his first wife, actress Judy Farrell, who died in 2023. He wore a white T-shirt tucked into acid wash jeans, paired with black trainers.
Fabares, who was married to Farrell for 42 years, died on August 22 at the age of 82. She starred opposite Elvis Presley in multiple films and was also known for her television work on The Donna Reed Show and Coach.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Farrell's representative for comment but has not yet received a response.
Cause of Death Revealed
Fabares's death certificate indicated that the immediate cause of death was acute respiratory distress she suffered in the final days of her life. Primary pneumonia, which she was diagnosed with weeks before her death, is listed on the document as a condition that contributed to it, according to People. No autopsy was performed before her cremation last Friday.
Farrell's M*A*S*H Legacy
Farrell's defining role was BJ Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H, which he joined in 1975 after original cast member Wayne Rogers, who had taken over for film star Elliott Gould as Trapper John, left the series between its third and fourth seasons.
The series, which premiered in 1972 as an adaptation of Robert Altman's acclaimed 1970 film, grew more popular than ever after Farrell joined, and he stayed with the show for its final eight seasons. Its 1983 finale became the most-watched television program in the US at the time, a record that stood until the 2010 Super Bowl.
Early Life and Career
Farrell was born in South St. Paul, Minnesota, and moved to Hollywood with his parents and three siblings when he was two years old. His father worked as a carpenter on film sets.
He joined the United States Marine Corps in 1957 and began pursuing acting after his discharge in 1959. He had early television roles in the 1960s on Lassie, The Monkees, I Dream of Jeannie and The Bill Cosby Show.
Farrell also worked in soap operas, playing Scott Banning on Days of Our Lives from 1968 to 1970. In the early 1970s he appeared on Bonanza, Mannix, The Six Million Dollar Man and Marcus Welby, MD.
During his time on M*A*S*H, Farrell occasionally shared the screen with his first wife, Judy Farrell, who appeared in eight episodes as Nurse Able. The couple, who had two children, married in 1963 and divorced in 1983, the year M*A*S*H ended.
Farrell had a handful of film roles, including an uncredited part as a bellhop in The Graduate (1967). One of his first credited roles came in 1968's Panic in the City, and that same year he appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's feature debut Targets, starring Boris Karloff.
Later Career With Shelley Fabares
After M*A*S*H, Farrell starred as John F. Kennedy in the TV movie JFK: A One-Man Show (1984) and appeared on multiple episodes of The $25,000 Pyramid. He reunited with Fabares for a guest spot on her series Coach in 1990, the same year he appeared on Murder, She Wrote, followed by two episodes of Matlock in 1991.
Farrell and Fabares worked together again on Superman: The Animated Series in the late 1990s, as well as 2003's Justice League and the 2006 direct-to-video film Superman: Brainiac Attacks, voicing the adoptive human parents of Clark Kent.
Producing and Activism
As he appeared on screen less, Farrell moved into producing, with his biggest success being the 1998 dramedy Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams. He also devoted more time to activism, serving as president of Death Penalty Focus for more than a decade in his efforts to end the death penalty.
Farrell also served as co-chair of the California Human Rights Watch for years and was honored with PETA's Humanitarian Award in 2001. More recently, he has been outspoken in his criticism of Donald Trump, joining a failed 2016 effort to urge Republican electors to block certification of Trump's presidential win by voting for former Ohio Governor John Kasich instead.
