Why did actor Wayne Rogers leave the TV show MASH?

Answer 1

Wayne Rogers left M*A*S*H, according to rumors, because when he had originally signed on to play the Trapper John McIntyre character, he was led to believe that Trapper would share equal billing with the Hawkeye Pierce character which would be played by Alan Alda. Rogers thought that the producers were short changing his Trapper character and giving more screen time to Hawkeye than to Trapper, so he decided to leave the series at the end of Season 3. Unfortunately for Rogers, as the show began to become more successful in the Nielsen Ratings during the latter part of the second season Alan Alda's Hawkeye proved to be more popular with both fans and critics of the show.

Rogers did, however, still enjoy working with Alda and the rest of cast as a whole (Alda and Rogers quickly became close life-long friends), but eventually chafed that the writers were devoting the show's best humorous and dramatic moments to Alda. This problem would lead him to decide to depart from the cast (along with fellow cast member McLean Stevenson, who played Col. Henry Blake) after the third season, in spite of the fact the the show had become a top-rated sitcom.