This elegant-looking star was Hollywood’s leading heartthrob in 1980.
The American actor enjoyed a remarkable one-two career breakthrough that year, starring in a popular ABC sitcom while also landing a leading role in one of the decade’s biggest blockbuster film franchises.
He began his career on stage, appearing in productions including The Glass Menagerie and Richard III at San Diego’s renowned Old Globe Theatre. In the early 1970s, he relocated to Hollywood to pursue opportunities in film and television.
The once boyish heartthrob, now 79, made his screen debut in 1975 opposite James Garner in The Rockford Files.
He quickly built an impressive television résumé, appearing alongside some of the era’s biggest stars in hit shows such as Wonder Woman, The Streets of San Francisco, Laverne & Shirley, The Love Boat and Marcus Welby, MD.
By the close of the disco era, the Bethesda, Maryland native had secured the big-screen opportunity that would establish him as a bona fide movie star.
The veteran entertainer, whose once-brown hair is now streaked with silver, was recently photographed during a rare outing in Los Angeles.
Can you identify the actor?
This 79-year-old Hollywood veteran beat out David Letterman for his most iconic big-screen role
The still-dashing actor cut a trim figure during his recent appearance in Los Angeles
The mystery star is Robert Hays.
Hays is best known for playing Ted Striker, the pilot with a “drinking problem,” in Airplane!, the hugely successful disaster-movie parody that also starred comedy legends Leslie Nielsen and Julie Hagerty.
That same year, Hays appeared in the highly rated but short-lived ABC sitcom Angie, a lighthearted comedy about newlyweds from very different backgrounds that ran from 1979 to 1980.
He eventually left the series to chase his major film opportunity after reading the script in the very setting that would inspire his breakthrough: an airplane.
‘There was something on every page that made me laugh out loud and the stewardess noticed,’ Hays told The Guardian in 2020.
‘I gave it to her when I was done. She was very prim and proper, with her hair in a tight bun. I looked up the aisle and saw her sitting with the script on her lap. A little later, I saw her smiling. Then she started really chuckling. Soon her hair was coming undone and she was laughing uproariously. That’s a good sign.’
Despite the success of the 1982 follow-up Airplane II: The Sequel, Hays spent much of the decade appearing in underwhelming box-office releases. His credits included 1981’s Take This Job and Shove It with Barbara Hershey and 1985’s Cat’s Eye, which starred Drew Barrymore.
By 1991, Hays was married to singer and actress Cherie Currie, the “Cherry Bomb” vocalist from the influential 1970s rock band The Runaways, which also featured a teenage Joan Jett.
The platinum-blonde singer and actress had co-starred with Jodie Foster in Adrian Lyne’s 1980 film Foxes and later appeared in Steven Spielberg’s 1983 reboot of The Twilight Zone.
Hays and Currie divorced in 1997 after seven years of marriage. They have one son, singer and actor Jake Hays, who is 35.
One major piece of Hays-related trivia: As Hollywood legend has it, he beat out none other than late night talkshow icon David Letterman for his most famous leading role.
The mystery star is actor Robert Hays
Hays is best known for his role as Ted Striker, the pilot with a ‘drinking problem,’ in 1980’s Airplane!
Letterman, 79, said he initially resisted doing the screen test for Airplane!, telling his agent: ‘I just don’t act,’ but eventually agreed to give it a shot.
Over the course of eight hours, the obviously nervous Indiana native recited a wacky monologue from the movie involving a wartime raid, a brick-fireplace apartment and a shell-shocked soldier who thought he was Broadway belter Ethel Merman.
The role, of course, went to Hays, and the film went on to gross more than $171 million-on a production budget of only $3.5 million-in its initial box office run, according to Airplane creators David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker
Years later in 1982, Letterman’s infamously awkward screen test footage resurfaced and was milked for laughs when Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker appeared on the first incarnation of the comic’s NBC Late Night show.
As film and TV roles slowed down, Hays segued into some topnotch voice acting, including a run as Tony Stark in Marvel Comics’ 1994 animated TV series adaptation of Iron Man.
Hays returned to features as father figure Bob Seaver of the popular Homeward Bound family film franchise in 1993 and 1996, respectively.
He ushered in the 2000s by joining the all-star ensemble cast of Robert Altman’s Dr T & the Women with Richard Gere, Laura Dern, Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett and Kate Hudson.
The decade continued at a steady clip with a recurring role as Hyde’s dad in FOX’s That ’70s Show, as well as parts opposite Bette Midler in her eponymous 2001 CBS sitcom, and a 2002 turn opposite Charlie Sheen and Heather Locklear in the post-Michael J Fox iteration of ABC’s Spin City.
The veteran performer reunited with his Airplane! co-director, David Zucker, for a slapstick TV ad promoting tourism in Wisconsin in 2013.
Hays co-starred with Leslie Nielsen in the screwball disaster film parody, which racked up one of the biggest box office hauls of 1980
Hays beat out none other than late night talkshow icon David Letterman for his most famous leading role
Hays and Zucker also joined forces for the 2008 genre parody Superhero Movie!, which reunited them both with Leslie Nielsen.
Hays continues to work sporadically, including a September 2026 guest star spot in MeTV’s Toon with Me.
He also continues to collab with his co-star Hagerty in the Airplane! Live Tour, a collab they both recently discussed on Phil Rosenthal’s Naked Lunch podcast.