Adrian Cronauer, the U.S. military radio disc jockey immortalized by Robin Williams in the 1987 film Good Morning, Vietnam, has died at 79.
Cronauer was a U.S. Air Force sergeant who became famous in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966 by opening his daily Armed Forces Radio show bellowing, “Goood morning, Vietnam!” He then played rock ’n’ roll records instead of the light, middle-of-the-road music his superiors wanted him to play.
As portrayed by Williams, Cronauer would leap around the studio, dance, make fun of officers, mock official military announcements, and read news bulletins before they could be censored.
Cronauer said he enjoyed the film, but called Williams’ antics show business and a vast exaggeration of who he really was.
“I was always a bit of an iconoclast, as Robin was in the film,” he once said. “But I was not anti-military or anti-establishment. I was anti-stupid. And you certainly ran into a lot of stupidity in the military.”
