McLean Stevenson(1927-1996)

The unexpected death of Stevenson's "Henry Blake" character from M*A*S*H (1972) at the end of the third (1975) season (plane crash on the way back to the States) caused such a strong fan backlash, with countless letters of hate mail being received over the character's death, that the show's writers and producers all agreed that in the future, should one of their actors wish to leave, they would never give that actor's character a tragic send-off.

[on leaving M*A*S*H (1972)] I probably got too big for my britches. The biggest mistake I made was I thought everybody loved McLean Stevenson. It was Henry Blake that people loved. So when I went out and did The McLean Stevenson Show (1976), nobody gave a damn.