Arthur Gordon Jump (April 1, 1932 – September 22, 2003) was an American actor, known for his role as the "Maytag Repairman" in commercials for Maytag brand appliances, from 1989 until his retirement from the role in July 2003.
He is best-known as the clueless radio station manager Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson in the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati and the incompetent "Piece of Chalief Tinkler" in the sitcom Soap.
He graduated from Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio in 1955. In 1957, Jump graduated with a degree in journalism from Kansas State University, where he was a member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity. He began his career working at radio and television stations in Manhattan and Topeka, Kansas. In Topeka he did the weather on WIBW-TV in 1959. He was a television producer and on-air personality in Dayton, Ohio, when he decided to move to Los Angeles and study acting.
He took minor roles in television, on such shows as Get Smart, The Partridge Family, The Bionic Woman, and The Rockford Files. He also guest-starred in a number of series, such as the Incredible Hulk (in an October 1978 episode called "Ricky") and in Diff'rent Strokes in a somewhat infamous appearance as a pedophile. After WKRP in Cincinnati folded, Jump hosted the PBS series Make Yourself at Home and taught voice classes, as well as making frequent appearances on the hit television show, Growing Pains. Jump also enjoyed working in theater. In the 1990s, concurrent with his new role as the Maytag Repairman, Jump starred in a short-lived revival of WKRP entitled The New WKRP in Cincinnati. In the ninth and final season of Seinfeld, he played George Costanza's boss at a playground equipment company over two episodes.
Jump was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He died in 2003 from pulmonary fibrosis, leading to respiratory failure at his home near Los Angeles, California. [1]
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