Clete Roberts

Clete Roberts (February 1, 1912 – September 30, 1984)

Acting career Roberts appeared in episodes of M*A*S*H, in which he played himself, as a war correspondent.

Roberts appeared as himself in the lengthy introduction to the crime syndicate expose film The Phenix City Story in 1955. He interviewed on camera several of the actual townspeople of Phenix City, Alabama, who had been witness to the events there in the 1930s, '40s and early '50s.

Roberts portrayed reporters in various productions, among them Meteor from 1979 and the 1983 NBC miniseries V as well a San Francisco television newsman in the 1983 nuclear war film Testament.

Death Roberts died at age 72 of heart and respiratory failure at 6:55 a.m. PT on September 30, 1984. He had been admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center 44 days earlier on August 17 for surgery necessitated by a brain aneurysm. He suffered a fatal heart attack when the aneurysm pressed on his respiratory nerve and caused him to stop breathing.