Johnny Haymer

Johnny Haymer, born Haymer Lionel Flieg on January 19, 1920, in St. Louis, Missouri, was an American actor whose career spanned stage, television, and voice work across several decades. The son of Jewish immigrants, he graduated from the University of Missouri in 1942 with a degree in speech, concentrating on dramatic impressions. He died in Los Angeles on November 18, 1989, of cancer, at the age of 69.

Haymer's stage career placed him on Broadway between 1956 and 1961, with credits including the musical New Faces of 1943 and Carnival!. These appearances established his presence in the New York theater world before his career shifted increasingly toward television.

On the small screen, Haymer became widely recognized for his recurring role as Staff Sergeant Zelmo Zale in the long-running television series M*A*S*H. He also portrayed Walter Pinkerton on Madame's Place from 1982 to 1983. Among his many individual television appearances, he played the crooked fight promoter Moriarty in the third-season Wild Wild West episode "The Night of the Viper," which aired on October 1, 1968, and appeared in the penultimate episode of the original Star Trek series, "All Our Yesterdays." Additional credits include a 1965 episode of The Cara Williams Show, a shot-down general in Hogan's Heroes, a Season 2 episode of The Incredible Hulk titled "Haunted," a police officer in the Facts of Life episode "Under Pressure" in 1983, and a commissioner in the Golden Girls episode "It's a Miserable Life" in 1986.

Haymer also worked as an announcer on the game show Your Number's Up, hosted by Nipsey Russell. In the mid-1980s he contributed voice work to The Transformers, providing the voices for the characters Swindle, Vortex, Highbrow, and Caliburst. During the same period he appeared in television commercials for Standard Shoes stores.