Wings (NBC TV Series) - Recurring Characters

Recurring Characters

Carlton Blanchard: He is an old man with a high-pitched nasal voice whose outwardly meek yet privately demanding behavior causes everyone who meets him to shudder at his coming. He is also known for asking bizarre questions such as "If you were to carpet Florida, how long would it take to vacuum it?" and "If a monkey were to bite you, what kind of drugs do you suppose they'd give you?". He annoyed Joe, Brian, Lowell and Antonio when he won a charity contest sponsored by Sandpiper and demanded he be flown to Las Cruces, New Mexico, way beyond the scope of Sandpiper's routes. In another episode, he tricked Helen into throwing him a birthday party and then fell down her stairs in order to force her to take care of him for a week. Though none of the regulars care for Carlton, he is especially disliked by Antonio, a situation made worse by the fact that Carlton repeatedly calls him "Angelo". Carlton was played by William Hickey.

Mr. Hackett: Joe and Brian's deceased father who had taken it hard when his wife, and the boys' mother, walked out on the family. He was committed to a mental institution and had died just prior to the beginning of the series. He had a good sense of humor, and in the series premiere had his will required to be read to both Brian and Joe together, which required them to reunite after their six year estrangement. He willed them a key which opened up the lockbox to another key, then another, which had Joe and Brian go to Boston then back to Nantucket airport where they ended up finding a suitcase full of spring snakes and a photograph of them as children, encouraging them to always value their kinship. After Brian and Casey burn down Joe's house, Joe, fed up with Brian's string of irresponsible behavior, fires him from Sandpiper and orders him never to speak to him again. The ghost of his father appears and uses reverse psychology to convince Joe to make peace with Brian. Mr. Hackett was played by Don Murray.

Lou: Lou is a feisty old man who is introduced in Season Seven's "The Lyin' King". In that episode, Joe, in order to assuage his guilt over going to a strip club later, volunteers at the senior citizens' home, where he is assigned to spend time with Lou. After spending a moment complaining about how lousy nursing home life is, Lou manages to guilt trip Joe into taking him to the strip club with him. Though Joe is somewhat tolerant of Lou, Brian is decidedly less so, referring to him derisively as "Yoda" (due to Lou's shrivelled physical appearance). Lou, in return, makes it clear he does not care for Brian either. Lou is also prone to talking about a rift he had in the past with his brother Harry, prompting his catchphrase, "He screwed me blue!" Lou was originally intended as a one-shot appearance, but proved so popular that he was brought back in the show's final season, where we are also introduced to his brother Harry, played by Abe Vigoda. Lou was played by Phil Leeds.

Davis Lynch: Davis is a businessman whom Joe flies to Nantucket to invest in the airline. Though he rejects Joe's offer (and ends up investing the money in Roy's airline), he ends up dating Helen, and eventually proposes to her. Helen accepts, but ends up leaving him for Joe. Toward the end of the series, Helen reveals she never broke off the engagement. She had figured he was gone after he was skirted off to Burma in the wake of a coup d'etat to salvage major investments he had in the company. He was then placed under house arrest by the military junta. Upon his release, Davis returns to see Helen, but while she is trying to work up the courage to tell him she has married someone else, Davis announces that he will be unable to marry her, having fallen in love with a woman who worked for the State Department and had risked her life to secure his release. Davis was played by Mark Harelik.

Roy Biggins, Jr. (a.k.a. R.J.): Roy's only son, who is secretly gay. Roy had trained R.J how to do "guy stuff" such as playing football. The first time he is shown is when he is a high school student taking cello lessons from Helen as an extracurricular activity. R.J. reveals to everyone he is a homosexual. Roy does not take this news well and challenges him to a game of one-on-one basketball on the condition that if R.J. wins he is "allowed" to be gay, but if Roy wins R.J. is not. R.J. wins game after game against Roy, but Roy refuses to give up. R.J. would return much later in the series after being estranged from Roy for a long time. He had since graduated from law school and was looking to take the Massachusetts Bar Exam. Roy is proud of R.J and his accomplishments, but only so long as R.J.'s homosexuality isn't discussed. R.J. was played by Abraham Benrubi.

Gail Scott: Joe's girlfriend during the first part of Season Three. They began dating while Helen was in New York. When Joe persuaded Helen to move back to Nantucket when she was unhappy in New York, he did not tell her about his relationship with Gail because of his worry that it would prevent Helen from moving back to Nantucket. Helen, convinced that she and Joe would pick up right where they left off, did come back, but soon discovered the truth about Joe and Gail. Believing that Joe intended to hurt her by not disclosing his relationship with Gail, Helen drove her jeep through Joe and Brian's office. Gail is in three episodes, but is mentioned in several others, including phone conversations. She is a journalist who constantly travels. She and Helen eventually become friends briefly, but Gail leaves Joe when she catches Joe and Helen kissing in his kitchen. Gail was played by Gretchen German.

Sandy Cooper: Sandy is a friend of Joe's, Brian's, and Helen's from high school. She has an insane, obsessive crush on Joe, but he is unable to convince anyone else of this because she acts completely normal except when she is alone with Joe, who gives her the nickname "Psycho Sandy". She would appear on Nantucket periodically and carefully plan her fantasy life with "Joey Bear" at moments when the two of them were alone. Such fantasies included a re-enacted high school prom; the couple's wedding and honeymoon; and the birth of their first child. In one episode, Sandy is shown to be dating Brian, but the relationship was ultimately never pursued by the show's writers. Sandy was played by Valerie Mahaffey.

Kenny McElvey: Kenny is an 18-year-old who becomes Sandpiper's backup pilot during a second season story arc where Joe is grounded for hypertension. The comedic focus of the character was his youth and relative inexperience, but he was the most qualified out of the applicants for Joe's replacement (which did not consist of a very large pool). When Joe began flying again in the third season, Kenny disappeared from the series without explanation and was never mentioned again. One episode showed Kenny also working at a fast food joint to supplement his meager income from Sandpiper. Kenny was played by Michael Manasseri.

Bunny Mather: Lowell's wife at the beginning of the series, from whom he separates and eventually divorces when he learns she sleeps with other men. Bunny's promiscuity is her primary gag; she flirts with nearly every man she encounters (including, at one point, Joe and Brian ), and ends up sleeping with many of them. Not even the divorce was enough to convince Bunny to stay away, as the episode that showed the divorce had Lowell and Bunny sleeping together that very same night. Bunny was played by Laura Innes.

Sylvia: Roy's ex-wife who divorced Roy and married a plastic surgeon. Roy initially tells people that she was dead, but after being caught in his lie, he decides to go see her, only to find out that she has a new husband and a new life. She returns to the island again in season 5 to sleep with Roy in an attempt to get back at her current husband for having an affair. Roy finds out and decides to not go through with it.

Mary Pat Lee: A Boston talk show host who tricks Brian onto her show in season 6 to meet up with his ex-girlfriend Alex. She returns the next season as Roy's new girlfriend, only to use the relationship to get a show topic using Joe and Helen. Played by Caroline Aaron. One of her biggest fans is Antonio. Her budding relationship with Roy causes him to mutter, "But.....she's Mary Pat Lee....and he's.....Roy."

Edgar Clayton: Wealthy industrialist who buys Sandpiper from Joe and Brian to keep it from going under. He installs his son Cord as the new president only to see Cord fail miserably. He also fired his uncle Mike in front of his whole board of directors and has been known to give terminated employees "The Big Ugly". He was part of a three-part story arc, "Wingless", during the show's final season. Played by Mitchell Ryan.

Eleanor "Bluto" Biggins: Roy's eccentric mother who lives in a nursing home. She is a meddlesome, domineering nag and Roy feels threatened by her. Joe, however, stood up to her and called her a "Miserable Old Gargoyle". Eleanor was also a heavy drinker and Roy once said she had to be "cut off after six boilermakers." She was frequently mentioned, but was not seen until the final season. Played by Rose Marie.

Lewis Blanchard: Carlton's equally irritating nephew. He is very rude and abrasive, and makes only the slightest of attempts to hide his wish for Carlton to die so he can inherit his money. He seems to have crushes on Casey, Helen, and Alex, who are all completely repulsed by his lewd remarks. Lewis was played by Gilbert Gottfried.

Mark: He is the waiter at the Crab Restaurant. He becomes infatuated with Helen, who later pushes him toward Alex. Mark was played by John Hawkes.