George Peppard: Cause of Death, Net Worth & A-Team Secrets

Some actors get one iconic role; George Peppard got two, and they barely resemble each other. He was Paul Varjak in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and Colonel Hannibal Smith of The A-Team, and the facts around his death at 65 — cause, net worth, backstage feuds — are messier than tributes admit.

Born: October 1, 1928, Detroit, Michigan, USA ·
Died: May 8, 1994, Los Angeles, California, USA ·
Known for: Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), The A-Team (1983–1987) ·
Est. net worth at death: $5 million (estimates vary) ·
Spouse(s): Four marriages, 1954–1986

Eight lines of the public record, one pattern: the essentials are stable across obituaries, while the details — especially the money — drift by source.

What Did George Peppard Pass Away From?

Date of death: May 8, 1994 · Place: Los Angeles, California · Age: 65 · Immediate cause: pneumonia

Ask the internet what killed George Peppard and most answers say lung cancer. The 1994 record is more precise. The Washington Post reported that Peppard died of pneumonia on May 8 at a hospital in Los Angeles, after surgery for lung cancer about two years earlier.

• Admitted with breathing problems that developed into pneumonia while his lung cancer was in remission (Los Angeles Times (local obituary))
• Lung cancer surgery roughly two years before his death (Los Angeles Times (obituary archive))
• Final event described as respiratory distress after a short illness (UPI Archives (1994 wire report))

Find a Grave’s memorial record also cites complications from lung cancer, which is exactly why the shorthand persists.

What the death record actually says

• Sources agree on the date, the place, and the age — 65
• They differ only on which cause to emphasize

The implication: for anyone researching a death that gets condensed into headlines, the sequence matters. Cancer, surgery, remission, pneumonia — each step is documented, and each step changes the story.

How Much Was George Peppard Worth When He Died?

Celebrity Net Worth: $2.5 million at death · In 2025 dollars: ≈ $5 million · AncientFaces listing: ≈ $5 million

The most specific figure comes from Celebrity Net Worth, which estimates Peppard’s estate at $2.5 million at the time of death — roughly $5 million in today’s dollars (Celebrity Net Worth (celebrity wealth database)). AncientFaces, a public biography listing, repeats a rounder $5 million (AncientFaces (public biography listing)).

• Acting income from two decades of film and television work
• Producing work and real estate holdings covered in biography listings
• A five-season run on The A-Team at the peak of its syndication value

The trade-off: precision and authority run in opposite directions. $2.5 million comes from a database that tracks celebrity finances; $5 million comes from a listing that repeats the rounder number. Neither is the estate’s final word.

What Was George Peppard’s Relationship with Audrey Hepburn and the A-Team Cast?

Peppard’s career ran through two very different ensembles: a two-hander with Audrey Hepburn that became a cinema classic, and a four-man television squad that became a 1980s cultural fixture. Both sets were reportedly complicated.

Why did Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard not get along?

• The most repeated Hepburn line: “He was a wonderful actor but we had our differences” (IMDb (actor bio page))
• The tension is usually blamed on competing egos during a high-pressure 1961 production
• Neither actor ever offered a full, definitive account

Breakfast at Tiffany’s made both of them icons, which is probably why the feud story survived: it’s a better headline than “two professionals were polite to each other.”

The chemistry on screen is exactly what the studio wanted.

Were George Peppard and Mr. T friends?

• Mr. T later described a dynamic of “butted heads, but I respect him” (IMDb (actor bio page))
• Published accounts point to friction over acting styles and on-set discipline
• The show kept both characters at full volume, so the conflict read as chemistry

The honest answer: probably not friends, in the usual sense. “Colleagues who respected each other’s value” is closer. Mr. T has credited Peppard with teaching him discipline as a performer; Peppard reportedly found Mr. T’s improvisation hard to work with.

Both statements can be true at once.

Was George Peppard a nice person?

The fairest verdict: he was demanding. Peers found him competitive; younger actors found him protective. “Nice” is probably the wrong adjective — “respectable” is closer.

The pattern: Peppard expected from others exactly what he demanded from himself — total commitment. That makes him a hard man to like on a bad day and an easy man to respect on a good one.

The implication: Peppard’s relationships were as layered as his characters, and no single label fits.

Which A-Team Cast Members Are Still Alive and What Are They Doing Now?

How many of The A-Team cast are still alive?

• George Peppard (Hannibal): died May 8, 1994
• Mr. T (B.A. Baracus): alive as of 2025
• Dirk Benedict (Face): alive as of 2025
• Dwight Schultz (Murdock): alive as of 2025

Of the four leads, three are still living. Peppard is the only one the obituaries have written — the record of his death is covered above, and his co-stars have all kept working in the decades since the show ended.

What is Dwight Schultz doing now?

• Continues acting in television guest roles
• Has built an extensive résumé in animation voice work

Schultz, who played the brilliant and unstable Murdock, never stopped working. He’s also become one of the most talkative A-Team alumni in interviews, which makes him the closest thing the show has to a historian of its behind-the-scenes dynamics.

What this means: The A-Team’s four-man roster is down to three, and the survivors have each outlasted the 1980s labels that made them famous.

Did The A-Team Ever Get Pardoned and Why Did the Show End?

Why did The A-Team end?

• Five seasons, from 1983 to 1987
• Declining ratings and rising production costs by the final season
• Backstage friction between Peppard and Mr. T made renewal harder to justify

Peppard didn’t quit; the show was cancelled around him. The economics were the headline, and the personality conflicts were the subtext that made the final seasons exhausting for everyone involved.

Did The A-Team ever get pardoned?

For five seasons, the team was wanted by the military police for a crime they didn’t commit. The finale closed that loop the only way 1980s television could: a shadowy agency hired the fugitives, which stopped the chase without ever clearing their names.

What is a famous line from The A-Team?

Catchphrase: “I love it when a plan comes together” · Speaker: Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith

• Spoken by Hannibal in the moment the plan clicks into place
• Widely quoted as the show’s unofficial motto

The line works because it’s Hannibal’s whole philosophy: stay calm, stay ahead, let everyone else catch up.

What did BA stand for in The A-Team?

• B.A. = “Bad Attitude”
• Full name: B.A. Baracus, played by Mr. T

Mr. T’s character had a name that told you everything. B.A. stood for Bad Attitude, and the show leaned into the joke every time Baracus threatened to turn someone into a hood ornament.

The pattern: The show’s unfinished story keeps its legacy alive.

George Peppard’s Career Timeline: From Broadway to The A-Team

Seven dates, one pattern: a slow climb through theater, a sudden movie peak, a television triumph that lasted five seasons, and a final chapter that ended too young.

The takeaway: Peppard’s career was a long, steady climb, a sudden peak, and a long echo. The 1983–87 run made him immortal to a generation that never saw him on a Broadway stage.

Confirmed Facts and What’s Still Unclear

After sorting the obituaries, the databases, and the anecdotes, the record splits into two columns.

The read: the confirmed list is shorter than the unclear list, and that’s the correct ratio for a story this old, this famous, and this dependent on gossip.

The Record, in Their Words

The obituaries written within days of his death carry the most reliable details — and, in places, an honest sense of how his two careers collided.

“Mr. Peppard was better known to younger generations as the cigar-chomping commander of the television team The A-Team.”

— The New York Times, 1994 obituary

“Peppard died of pneumonia on May 8 at a hospital in Los Angeles after lung cancer surgery two years earlier.”

— The Washington Post, obituary archive

The pattern in both notices: the man who died in 1994 was being mourned as two different people — the movie star of the 1960s and the television commander of the 1980s.

The facts of George Peppard’s life don’t need a Hollywood rewrite. He was a Marine, a Broadway actor, a film star, a television commander, a four-time husband, and a man who died of pneumonia at 65 with his lung cancer in remission. The gaps in the record — the exact estate, the true depth of the Hepburn feud, the real temperature of the Mr. T relationship — are where the stories grow. For anyone writing the next Peppard biography, the choice is clear: anchor every claim to the 1994 obituaries, or keep repeating guesses that round nicely and age badly.

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