TLDR: Ron Masak was born in Chicago on July 1, 1936. Rogers Hornsby spotted him at 16 and the White Sox offered him $8,500 to play baseball. He turned it down to act.
He voiced the Vlasic pickle stork for 15 years, impersonated Lou Costello in McDonald’s commercials, and appeared in approximately 350 television episodes. He played Sheriff Mort Metzger on Murder, She Wrote for eight seasons across 41 total appearances.
He died on October 20, 2022, nine days after Angela Lansbury.
When Ron Masak died in October 2022, most of the obituaries focused on the nine-day gap between his death and Angela Lansbury’s. That timing was genuinely remarkable, and it made for a clean narrative about the end of an era.
But it somewhat obscured what was actually unusual about Masak’s career, which is that he had one of the more improbable paths to television that Hollywood has ever produced, starting with turning down a professional baseball contract at sixteen.
The White Sox Contract He Walked Away From
Ronald Alan Masak was born on July 1, 1936, on Chicago’s South Side, near Comiskey Park. His father Floyd was a salesman and musician of Bohemian Czech descent. His mother Mildred was a merchandise buyer of Irish ancestry. He grew up the class clown, the showoff, the kid who would do anything for a laugh.
At sixteen, baseball Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby spotted him. The Chicago White Sox offered him $8,500 to sign. He turned it down to pursue acting and entertainment.
That decision is either the most consequential or the most eccentric career choice in this entire story, depending on how you look at it.
He studied theater at Chicago City College and made his stage debut with the Drama Guild in 1954. He served in the Army, where he toured globally as a performer, writer, and director for the all-Army variety showcase Rolling Along.
The tour honed his impressions and physical comedy and put him in front of audiences across three continents before Hollywood got involved.
The King of Commercials and the Pickle Stork
Hollywood columnist James Bacon coined the nickname “King of Commercials” for Masak, and it stuck. The Television Academy records describe him as appearing in “hundreds” of television and radio commercials.
The exact number was never officially counted, which says something about the volume.
His most enduring commercial role was the voice of the Vlasic pickle stork, which he held for fifteen years starting in the mid-1970s. The stork spoke like Groucho Marx. Masak delivered that voice reliably enough that an entire generation associated the sound with pickles.
He also impersonated Lou Costello in national advertising campaigns for McDonald’s, Tropicana, and Bran News, and served as the traveling national spokesman for the Meister Brau brewing company.
These were not small supplementary gigs. They were the central work of his career for stretches of the 1970s and 1980s, running parallel to his television guest appearances.
350 Television Episodes and Two Cousins You Know
Masak accumulated approximately 350 television guest appearances across five decades. His first was in The Twilight Zone in 1960. From there he moved through The Monkees, Bewitched, The Rockford Files, Magnum P.I., Columbo, and dozens of others, playing the kind of reliable character roles that keep productions running smoothly and that audiences recognize without being able to name.
His first cousins were Michael Gross, known for playing Steven Keaton on Family Ties, and Mary Gross, a former featured cast member on Saturday Night Live. The Masak family had a particular aptitude for ending up on television.
Sheriff Metzger and the 41 Appearances
Masak had actually appeared on Murder, She Wrote twice before he became Sheriff Metzger, playing different characters in Season 1 and Season 3. When Tom Bosley’s Sheriff Tupper departed after Season 4 in 1988, Masak was cast as his replacement.
He played Mort Metzger, a former NYPD officer who had moved to Maine expecting rural peace, across the final eight seasons through the 1996 series finale.
His total count on the show is 41 appearances: 39 as Metzger and 2 as earlier guest characters. Some obituaries rounded this to “upward of 40.” The Television Academy has his death year listed as 2021 in their digital archive. Both figures are wrong.
The correct episode count is 41 and the correct death year is 2022.
Metzger arrived with skepticism toward Jessica Fletcher’s methods and evolved into something closer to genuine respect across eight seasons.
His real-life daughter Kathryn played his deputy Lynn Olsen in several episodes. He was also, for 35 years, the honorary sheriff of Tarzana, California, a civic role he took seriously.
Nine Days After Lansbury
Angela Lansbury died on October 11, 2022. Ron Masak died on October 20, 2022, nine days later, of natural causes at a hospital in Thousand Oaks, California. He was 86.
He was survived by his wife Kay, whom he had married in September 1961, their six children, and ten grandchildren.
He had been married to Kay for 61 years. He had served as a host for the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon for eight years and received the organization’s first Humanitarian of the Year Award.
He had volunteered for the Special Olympics, Wounded Warriors, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation. The baseball contract had worked out fine.
For more on the show he spent eight seasons on, see the Murder, She Wrote cast hub.
Who did Ron Masak play on Murder She Wrote?
Ron Masak played Sheriff Mort Metzger, a former NYPD officer who relocated to Cabot Cove, Maine, across the final eight seasons of Murder, She Wrote from 1988 to 1996. He made 41 total appearances on the show: 39 as Metzger and 2 earlier appearances as different guest characters in Seasons 1 and 3. His real-life daughter Kathryn played his deputy Lynn Olsen in several episodes.
Why was Ron Masak called the King of Commercials?
Ron Masak was nicknamed the King of Commercials by Hollywood columnist James Bacon in recognition of his prolific advertising career. The Television Academy records describe him as appearing in hundreds of television and radio commercials. His most famous role was voicing the Vlasic pickle stork for fifteen years. He also impersonated Lou Costello in national campaigns for McDonald’s, Tropicana, and Bran News, and served as the traveling national spokesman for Meister Brau.
When did Ron Masak die?
Ron Masak died on October 20, 2022, of natural causes at a hospital in Thousand Oaks, California. He was 86 years old. His death came nine days after the death of his Murder, She Wrote co-star Angela Lansbury on October 11, 2022. Note: the Television Academy’s digital archive incorrectly lists his death year as 2021. The correct year is 2022, confirmed by obituaries in The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and People.
Is Ron Masak related to Michael Gross?
Yes. Ron Masak was first cousins with Michael Gross, who played Steven Keaton on Family Ties, and Mary Gross, a former featured cast member on Saturday Night Live. All three built careers in American television across several decades.
