Jack Hogan

Born Richard Roland Benson Jr., Jack Hogan is hard put to explain why he changed his name to something equally plain. “Maybe,” he says, “I just wanted to leave home and create a new person — and maybe I did.” Acting on the belief that everyone loves the Irish, he changed his name to Jack Hogan: a name that he’s proudly sported for over forty years.

Jack was raised in North Carolina and studied architecture at the University of North Carolina. In 1948, bored by college life, he left the University of North Carolina and spent the next four years in the armed forces, spending two of them in the Far East. Though he never had any previous yearning for a theatrical life, during his time in the service he decided to become an actor. By the time he left his final duty station in Japan, he had made arrangements to enroll at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.

In 1955, he headed for New York to attend the American Theatre Wing and continue his training. a year later, he returned to Hollywood where a string of acting jobs, both in films and on television, followed. His first film role was playing Westin in Man from Del Rio. Other films include The Bonnie Parker Story, The Legend of Tom Dooley, Paratroop Command, and The Burglar.

Jack credits directors Robert Gist and Robert Altman, with whom he has been associated, for exerting great and beneficial influences on his artistic development. Another personal mentor was Anthony Quinn, under whom he has studied and who gave him his first professional role. “For some reason, Tony Quinn liked me a lot. He signed to do a western for 20th and gave me my first part. At about the same time, I was working as a lifeguard at the Beverly Hills Hotel and teaching Josh Logan’s kids to swim (the director from New York), who was in town directing Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop. So, he gave me two days on Bus Stop and it all got cut out.”

Hogan had an impressive list of film and television credits when Robert Altman hired him to do a guest appearance on Combat! as troublesome Private Kirby in "Forgotten Front." Altman wanted a character in the show that would make some trouble for Vic.

Robert Altman had worked with Hogan on the TV series “Sheriff of Cochise” and “Bus Stop.” He had been impressed with Hogan’s talent. Altman was not alone in this opinion, and Hogan was hired for several more episodes. At the end of the first thirteen weeks, Hogan had made such an impression that he was signed to a five-year contract, replacing Shecky Greene as a permanent cast member.

Tough, quick-tempered, argumentative, and a skirt-chaser, Kirby is the show's "bad boy." He's been AWOL more than any other man in the outfit and once broke up a French cafe in a brawl over a woman. Consequently, he gets most of the good lines. Though a wise-cracker and complainer, Kirby is a good man in a fight. Kirby is the squad's BAR man (Browning Automatic Rifle).

According to his ABC bio for Combat!: “It’s a tribute to Jack Hogan’s acting ability that he is the unlikeliest of men to be cast as Kirby, the tough, quick-tempered, troublesome, mademoiselle-chaser of Sergeant Chip Saunders’ squad in Combat! Off camera, Jack is the kind of guy Kirby just couldn't ‘dig.’ He’s soft-spoken and serious.”

After Combat! left the air in 1967, Jack continued to serve in uniform on several television series. His TV career included on-going appearances as Sergeant Jerry Miller on "Adam 12" and as Chief Ranger Jack Moore in his own series "Sierra," filmed in Yosemite. In the seventies, Jack Hogan appeared in several made-for-television movies, playing Kerwin in Houston, We've Got a Problem, Dr. Edward Grey in The Specialists, and Bill Hopkins in Mobile Two.

In the early eighties, Jack Hogan moved to Hawaii, where he supervised the operation of his construction business. During his ten-year stay in the islands, he garnered a recurring role as Judge Smithwood in "Jake and the Fatman" and served as casting director for "Magnum P.I." He also appeared twice as a guest on "Magnum," playing well-heeled villains.

Jack, twice divorced and the father of two, returned several years ago to his hometown of Chapel Hill. Jack’s favorite pursuits include painting, fishing, reading, “arguing God and politics with my friends” and taking short drives “to relieve the tension.” His reading runs to Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Maugham, and he is fond of poetry, particularly the works of Carl Sandburg. His favorite painter is Gauguin, whose works he often copies.