Airman who inspired hit movie dies at 79

The Associated Press

Adrian NORFOLK,

Cronauer, the man whose military radio antics inspired a character played by Robin Williams in the hit movie “Good Morning, Vietnam,” died Wednesday. He was 79.

Mary Muse, the wife of his stepson, Michael Muse, said Thursday that Cronauer died of an agerelated illness. He had lived in Troutville, Va., and died at a nursing home there, she said.

During his service as an Air Force sergeant in Vietnam in 1965 and 1966, Cronauer opened his Armed Forces Radio show with the phrase, “Goooooood morning, Vietnam!”

Williams made the refrain famous in the 1987 film, loosely based on Cronauer’s time in Saigon.

The film was a departure from other Vietnam war movies that focused on bloody realism, such as the Academy Awardwinning “Platoon.” Instead, it was about irreverent youths in the 1960s fighting the military establishment.

“We were the only game in town, and you had to play by our rules,” Cronauer told The Associated Press in 1987. “But I wanted to serve the listeners.”

The military wanted conservative programming. American youths, however, were “not into drab, sterile announcements” with middle-ofthe-road music, Cronauer said, and the battle over the airwaves was joined.

In the film, Williams quickly drops Perry Como and Lawrence Welk from his 6 a.m. playlist in favor of the Dave Clark Five.

Cronauer said he loved the movie, but he said much of the film was Hollywood make-believe. Robin Williams’ portrayal as a fast-talking, nonconformist, yuk-it-up disc jockey sometimes gave people the wrong impression of the man who inspired the film.

“Yes, I did try to make it sound more like a stateside station,” he told The AP in 1989. “Yes, I did have problems with news censorship. Yes, I was in a restaurant shortly before the Viet Cong hit it. And yes, I did start each program by yelling, ‘Good Morning, Vietnam!’ ”