Steve Wayne, an actor known locally for his one-man crusade against junky signs, has died in Los Angeles of cancer. He was 84.
Mr. Wayne, who died Sept. 5, tore down thousands of illegal fliers tacked on fences, traffic lights and utility poles over the past two decades.
“If everybody just takes down one sign a week, we could clean up Los Angeles easily,” he said. He kept at it nearly up to the day he died, stopping to rip down signs “even when coming home from his chemo appointments,” said his daughter, Cathy Wayne.
Mr. Wayne made his living for four decades as a TV commercial actor who pitched such products as Alka-Seltzer, Ocean Spray, Polident and Wheaties.
He also had bit parts in more than 30 movies, including “Bedtime for Bonzo,” which starred Ronald Reagan, and on such television series as “Dragnet” and “The Cisco Kid.”
His obsession with signs bloomed in late 1979 when he noticed that music groups were plastering fliers over “No Smoking” and “Fire Area” signs in his heavily wooded Laurel Canyon neighborhood, not far from the site of a major fire that had destroyed homes.
