14:38Classic TV · 1977Soap Cast Then and Now: Who's Still Alive?
Episode: Soap (1977) Cast Then & Now 2026 — Who’s Still Alive After 49 Years?
From Hollywood Legends Era · 15 min ·
About the Soap Cast Then and Now
The Soap cast then and now is the story of a daring comedy that poked fun at daytime dramas and made television history along the way. Created by Susan Harris, the ABC series premiered in September 1977 and ran for four seasons, ending in April 1981.
The show followed two families headed by sisters: the wealthy Tates and the working-class Campbells of Dunn's River, Connecticut. Its storylines included murder, amnesia, cults and even an alien abduction.
Soap drew protests before it aired, and about 20 ABC affiliates initially refused to show it. Yet it earned 17 Emmy nominations. Forty-nine years later, here is what became of the cast.
Who Is Still With Us From Soap?
Billy Crystal as Jodie Dallas
In October 1975, a young comedian named Billy Crystal was cut from the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. Less than two years later, he landed the role that made his name.
As Jodie Dallas, he played one of the first openly gay regular characters on prime-time television. He went on to a long career in film and won a Tony Award in 2005 for his one-man show 700 Sundays.
In January 2025, the Pacific Palisades home where he and his wife Janice had lived for 46 years was lost in the Los Angeles fires. This fall he is back on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre with a new solo show about that home, called 860. Billy Crystal is 78.
Jay Johnson as Chuck and Bob Campbell
Ventriloquist Jay Johnson played Chuck Campbell, whose dummy, Bob, had a personality all his own. The show treated them almost as two different characters.
In May 2007, the original Bob from Soap was added to the entertainment collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. That same year, Johnson won the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event for his show The Two and Only! Jay Johnson is 77.
Bob Seagren as Dennis Phillips
Before he acted, Bob Seagren of Pomona, California, was an Olympic pole vaulter. He won gold at the 1968 Games in Mexico City. In Munich in 1972, a last-minute ruling barred the new poles many vaulters used, and he took silver.
On Soap he played Dennis Phillips, a football player in a relationship with Jodie. He later led International City Racing, which runs road races including the Long Beach marathon. Bob Seagren turned 80 on October 17, 2026.
Jennifer Salt as Eunice Tate
Jennifer Salt, the daughter of screenwriter Waldo Salt, played Eunice Tate in 63 episodes. She later retired from acting and became a writer, with credits on Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story, the film Eat Pray Love and Ratched (2020). Jennifer Salt is 82.
Diana Canova as Corinne Tate
Diana Canova, the daughter of comedy star Judy Canova, played Corinne Tate from 1977 to 1980. She went on to star in the sitcom Throb and later taught voice as an adjunct professor at Manhattanville College in New York.
Ted Wass as Danny Dallas
Ted Wass played Danny, Jodie's brother, for the whole run. He and Diana Canova later appeared together in Neil Simon's They're Playing Our Song.
He began directing while working on Blossom and has directed episodes of more than 40 series, including Spin City and The Big Bang Theory. In 2022 he returned to acting on Call Me Kat, reuniting with Mayim Bialik. Ted Wass is 73.
Sal Viscuso as Father Timothy Flotsky
Sal Viscuso played Father Tim, the priest who left the priesthood for Corinne. Many viewers also heard him without seeing him: he was one of the public address announcers on M*A*S*H.
Remembering the Soap Stars Who Have Passed
Robert Guillaume as Benson DuBois
Robert Guillaume, born Robert Peter Williams in St. Louis, played Benson, the sharp-tongued butler. He won an Emmy in 1979 for Soap, then a second in 1985 as lead actor in the spinoff Benson.
In 1990 he replaced Michael Crawford as the Phantom in Los Angeles, the first Black actor to play the role, and he later voiced Rafiki in The Lion King. He died of prostate cancer at his Los Angeles home on October 24, 2017, at 89.
Richard Mulligan and Cathryn Damon as Burt and Mary Campbell
On September 7, 1980, both Richard Mulligan and Cathryn Damon won Emmys for playing Burt and Mary. Neither was there. The Screen Actors Guild was on strike, and 51 of the 52 nominated performers stayed away in support.
Mulligan won again in 1989 for Empty Nest. Cathryn Damon died of cancer on May 4, 1987, at 56. Richard Mulligan died on September 26, 2000, at 67.
Katherine Helmond as Jessica Tate
Katherine Helmond played Jessica, the dreamy lady of the Tate house, and was Emmy-nominated every year the show aired. She won a Golden Globe for the role and later starred in Who's the Boss? She died of complications of Alzheimer's disease on February 23, 2019, at 89.
Gregory Sierra, who played the revolutionary El Puerco, Jessica's kidnapper turned lover, died on January 4, 2021, at 83.
Robert Mandan as Chester Tate
Robert Mandan, born in Clever, Missouri, had been on Broadway in Applause before playing Jessica's wandering husband. He died in Los Angeles on April 29, 2018, at 86, and his death was not reported until about five weeks later.
Arthur Peterson as The Major
Arthur Peterson, born in Mandan, North Dakota, had a long radio career on The Guiding Light and served with General Patton's Third Army in World War II. He played the Major, Jessica's confused father, and later toured in The Gin Game with his wife, Norma Ransom. He died on October 31, 1996, at 83.
Robert Urich as Peter Campbell
Robert Urich played Peter, the tennis pro, before starring in Vega$ and Spenser: For Hire. In 1996 he announced he had synovial sarcoma, a rare cancer, and he and his wife, Heather Menzies, set up a sarcoma research fund at the University of Michigan.
He donated his Who Wants to Be a Millionaire winnings to cancer research. He died on April 16, 2002, at 55.
Why Soap Still Matters Today
Others we remember include Donnelly Rhodes, who played Dutch and later Doc Cottle on Battlestar Galactica (he died in 2018); Roscoe Lee Browne, the butler Saunders, who won an Emmy for The Cosby Show and died in 2007; and announcer Rod Roddy, who opened each episode and died in 2003.
Soap took risks that few shows dared in the 1970s, and it did so with strong actors and real affection for its oddball families. That is why people still talk about it nearly half a century later.
Did you watch Soap when it first aired, and which character made you laugh the hardest?
Sources and Further Reading
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