80s hunk from iconic action-comedy franchise fame looks incredibly youthful at 79... can you guess who?

This distinguished looking gentleman was a topflight Hollywood heartthrob in 1980.

That year, the American actor landed a one-two career punch with a hit ABC sitcom – and leading man role in one of the decade's biggest blockbuster film franchises.

He cut his teeth in theatre, performing in plays like The Glass Menagerie and Richard III at the legendary Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, before moving to tinsel town in the early 70s to pursue a career in film and television. 

The once boyishly handsome hunk, now 79, made his on screen debut in 1975 opposite James Garner in The Rockford Files. 

He went on to appear opposite a who's who of Hollywood heavyweights in the hottest TV series of the time, including attention-grabbing parts on Wonder Woman, The Streets of San Francisco, Laverne & Shirley, The Love Boat and Marcus Welby, MD.

By the end of the Disco era, the native of Bethesda, Maryland, had scored the silver screen showcase that would make him a bona fide movie star.

The showbiz survivor, his brown locks now peppered with silver, was photographed recently on a rare outing in Los Angeles.

Can you guess who this actor is?

This 79-year-old Hollywood veteran beat out David Letterman for his most iconic big screen role

The still handsome actor cut a trim figure when he resurfaced in Los Angeles this week 

The mystery star is actor Robert Hays.

Hays is best known for his role as Ted Striker, the pilot with a 'drinking problem,' in 1980's Airplane!, the smash hit disaster film parody that co-starred the sidesplitting Leslie Nielsen and Julie Hagerty.

That same year, Hays co-starred in the highly rated but short-lived sitcom Angie, a lighthearted look at newlyweds from different sides of the proverbial tracks that aired from 1979 to 1980 on ABC.

He left the series to pursue his big break on the big screen after reading the script on, you guessed it, an airplane.

'There was something on every page that made me laugh out loud and the stewardess noticed,' Hays told The Guardian in 2020. 

'I gave it to her when I was done. She was very prim and proper, with her hair in a tight bun. I looked up the aisle and saw her sitting with the script on her lap. A little later, I saw her smiling. Then she started really chuckling. Soon her hair was coming undone and she was laughing uproariously. That's a good sign.'

Alas, apart from the subpar-but-successful Airplane II: The Sequel in 1982, Hays was stuck in a series of box office duds throughout the decade, including 1981's Take This Job and Shove It with Barbara Hershey and 1985's Cat's Eye starring Drew Barrymore.

By 1991, Hays was married to singer-actress Cherie Currie, the Cherry Bomb singer of the legendary '70s rock band The Runaways alongside a teenaged Joan Jett.

The platinum blonde double threat co-starred with Jodie Foster in Adrian Lyne's 1980 film Foxes, and appeared in Steven Spielberg's reboot of The Twilight Zone in 1983.

Hays and Currie divorced in 1997 after seven years of marriage. They share a son, singer-actor Jake Hays, 35.

One major piece of Hays-related trivia: As Hollywood legend has it, he beat out none other than late night talkshow icon David Letterman for his most famous leading role. 

The mystery star is actor Robert Hays 

Hays is best known for his role as Ted Striker, the pilot with a 'drinking problem,' in 1980's Airplane!

Letterman, 79, said he initially resisted doing the screen test for Airplane!, telling his agent: 'I just don't act,' but eventually agreed to give it a shot.

Over the course of eight hours, the obviously nervous Indiana native recited a wacky monologue from the movie involving a wartime raid, a brick-fireplace apartment and a shell-shocked soldier who thought he was Broadway belter Ethel Merman. 

The role, of course, went to Hays, and the film went on to gross more than $171 million-on a production budget of only $3.5 million-in its initial box office run, according to Airplane creators David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker

Years later in 1982, Letterman's infamously awkward screen test footage resurfaced and was milked for laughs when Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker appeared on the first incarnation of the comic's NBC Late Night show.

As film and TV roles slowed down, Hays segued into some topnotch voice acting, including a run as Tony Stark in Marvel Comics' 1994 animated TV series adaptation of Iron Man.

Hays returned to features as father figure Bob Seaver of the popular Homeward Bound family film franchise in 1993 and 1996, respectively.

He ushered in the 2000s by joining the all-star ensemble cast of Robert Altman's Dr T & the Women with Richard Gere, Laura Dern, Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett and Kate Hudson.

The decade continued at a steady clip with a recurring role as Hyde's dad in FOX's That '70s Show, as well as parts opposite Bette Midler in her eponymous 2001 CBS sitcom, and a 2002 turn opposite Charlie Sheen and Heather Locklear in the post-Michael J Fox iteration of ABC's Spin City.

The veteran performer reunited with his Airplane! co-director, David Zucker, for a slapstick TV ad promoting tourism in Wisconsin in 2013.

Hays co-starred with Leslie Nielsen in the screwball disaster film parody, which racked up one of the biggest box office hauls of 1980

Hays beat out none other than late night talkshow icon David Letterman for his most famous leading role

Hays and Zucker also joined forces for the 2008 genre parody Superhero Movie!, which reunited them both with Leslie Nielsen.

Hays continues to work sporadically, including a September 2026 guest star spot in MeTV's Toon with Me. 

He also continues to collab with his co-star Hagerty in the Airplane! Live Tour, a collab they both recently discussed on Phil Rosenthal's Naked Lunch podcast.