Alan Alda
Alan Alda is an American actor and filmmaker. In a career spanning seven decades on both stage and screen, he is best known for portraying Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the CBS wartime sitcom M*A*S*H, where he also wrote and directed numerous episodes of the series. Alda has received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, three Tony Awards, and two BAFTA Awards.
After starring in the films Same Time, Next Year, California Suite, and The Seduction of Joe Tynan, he made his directorial debut with The Four Seasons. Alda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Owen Brewster in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. Other notable film roles include Crimes and Misdemeanors, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Everyone Says I Love You, Flirting with Disaster, Tower Heist, Bridge of Spies, and Marriage Story.
Alda won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Senator Arnold Vinick in the NBC series The West Wing. Other Emmy-nominated roles include in And the Band Played On in 1993, ER in 2000, 30 Rock in 2009, and The Blacklist in 2015. He also had recurring roles in The Big C, Horace and Pete, Ray Donovan, and The Good Fight.
Alda is also known for his roles on Broadway acting in Purlie Victorious and receiving three Tony Award nominations for his performances in The Apple Tree, Jake's Women, and Glengarry Glen Ross. In 2008 he received a Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording nomination for Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself. In 2019, Alda received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. He hosts the podcast Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda and previously hosted Science Clear+Vivid.
Early life and education
Alda was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo on January 28, 1936, in Manhattan, to Robert Alda, an actor and singer of Italian descent, and Joan Browne, a homemaker and former beauty-pageant winner of Irish descent. His father created the stage name Alda by combining the first two letters of his first and last names. Alan spent his childhood traveling around the United States with his parents, in support of his father's job as a performer; he performed with his father in the less risqué burlesque sketches. His mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and, according to Alan, tried to stab his father when Alan was six. In the same interview he said that his mother taught him to improvise, an important skill of his: he had to learn how to react to the state she was in, for his own safety.When Alda was seven, he contracted polio. To combat the disease, his parents administered a painful treatment regimen developed by Elizabeth Kenny, consisting of applying hot woollen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles. Alda attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York. He studied English at Fordham University in the Bronx, where he was a student staff member of its FM radio station, WFUV. During his junior year, he studied in Paris, acted in a play in Rome, and performed with his father on television in Amsterdam.
In 1956, Alda received his Bachelor of Arts degree. A member of the ROTC, he entered the United States Army Reserve and served for six months at Fort Benning. Despite some erroneous reports on military sites that Alda then served in Korea, he has repeatedly said he did not serve there, instead following up active duty of six months at Fort Benning with a time in the reserves in New York City. In a 2013 interview, he joked that he was in charge of a mess tent.
Alda's half-brother Antony Alda was born in 1956 and also became an actor.
Career
1958–1971: Broadway debut and early work
Alda began his career in the 1950s as a member of the Compass Players, an improvisational comedy revue directed by Paul Sills. He later joined the improvisational group Second City in Chicago. He joined the acting company at the Cleveland Play House during their 1958–1959 season as part of a grant from the Ford Foundation, appearing in productions such as To Dorothy a Son, Heaven Come Wednesday, Monique, and Job. In 1958, he appeared as Carlyle Thompson III on The Phil Silvers Show in the episode titled "Bilko the Art Lover".Alda portrayed Charlie Cotchipee in the 1961 Ossie Davis play Purlie Victorious on Broadway. In the November 1964 world premiere at the August Wilson Theatre of the stage version of The Owl and The Pussycat, he played Felix the Owl, opposite Doris the Pussycat played by actress/singer Diana Sands, an African-American actress; their onstage kiss prompted hate mail. He continued to play Felix the Owl for the 1964–65 Broadway season. In 1966, he starred in the musical The Apple Tree on Broadway with Barbara Harris, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for the role. Alda said he became a Mainer in 1957 when he played at the Kennebunkport Playhouse.
Alda was part of the cast, along with David Frost, Henry Morgan and Buck Henry, of the American television version of That Was the Week That Was, which ran as a series from January 10, 1964, to May 1965. He made his Hollywood acting debut as a supporting player in Gone Are the Days!, a film version of the Broadway play Purlie Victorious, which co-starred Ruby Dee and her husband, Ossie Davis. Other film roles followed, such as his portrayal of author, humorist and actor George Plimpton in the film Paper Lion, as well as The Extraordinary Seaman, and the occult-murder-suspense thriller The Mephisto Waltz with actresses Jacqueline Bisset and Barbara Parkins. During this time, Alda frequently appeared as a game show panelist on the 1968 revival of What's My Line?, and on I've Got a Secret during its 1972 syndication revival. Alda wrote several of the stories and poems featured in Marlo Thomas' television show Free to Be... You and Me.
1972–1983: ''M*A*S*H'' and acclaim
In early 1972, Alda was selected to play Hawkeye Pierce in the TV adaptation of the 1970 film M*A*S*H. He was nominated for 21 Emmy Awards, and won five. He took part in writing 19 episodes, including the 1983 2.5-hour series finale "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", which was also the 32nd episode he directed. Alda was the only series regular to appear in all 256 episodes.File:MASH TV cast 1974.JPG|thumb|left|The cast of M*A*S*H in a pre-production photo from the third season, Malibu, California, 1974 : Loretta Swit, Larry Linville, Wayne Rogers, Gary Burghoff, McLean Stevenson, and Alda
Alda commuted from Los Angeles to his home in New Jersey every weekend for 11 years while starring in M*A*S*H. His wife and daughters lived in New Jersey and he did not want to move his family to Los Angeles, initially because he did not know how long the show would last.
During the series' first five seasons, its tone was largely that of a traditional "service comedy" in the vein of shows such as McHale's Navy. As the original writers gradually left the show, Alda gained increasing control, and by the final seasons had become a producer and creative consultant. Under his watch, M*A*S*H retained its comedic foundation, but gradually assumed a more serious tone, openly addressing political and social issues of the 1970s. As a result, the 11 years of M*A*S*H are generally split into two eras: the Larry Gelbart/Gene Reynolds "comedy" years, and the Alan Alda "dramatic" years. Alda disagreed with this assessment. In a 2016 interview he said, "I don't like to write political messages. I don't like plays that have political messages. I do not think I am responsible for that."
Alda and his co-stars Wayne Rogers and McLean Stevenson worked well together during the first three seasons, but over time, tensions developed as Alda's role grew in popularity and disrupted their characters' original 'equal' standing. Rogers and Stevenson left the show at the end of the third season. Anticipating the fourth season, Alda and the producers sought a replacement for the surrogate parent role embodied in the character of Colonel Blake. Veteran actor Harry Morgan, who was a fan of the series and had previously appeared in it, joined the cast as Colonel Sherman T. Potter and carried on as one of the show's lead protagonists. Mike Farrell was introduced as Hawkeye's new tentmate BJ Hunnicutt. Alda's father Robert Alda and half-brother Antony Alda appeared together in the 20th episode of season eight of M*A*S*H, "Lend a Hand". Robert had previously appeared in "The Consultant" in season three.
By 1981, he was the highest paid person on a TV show with a contract paying him $225,000 an episode.
In his 1981 autobiography, Jackie Cooper, who directed several early M*A*S*H episodes, wrote that Alda concealed a lot of hostility, and that the two of them barely spoke by the end of Cooper's tenure.
During his M*A*S*H years, Alda made several game-show appearances, most notably on The $10,000 Pyramid, and as a frequent panelist on What's My Line? and To Tell the Truth. He also starred in films including the 1978 comedy films Same Time, Next Year and California Suite, and wrote and starred in the title role of the 1979 political drama film The Seduction of Joe Tynan. His favorite episodes of M*A*S*H are "Dear Sigmund" and "In Love and War". In 1996, Alda was ranked 41st on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.
Writing and directing credits
| Season | Episode | Credit |
| One | Episode 19: "The Long John Flap" | Written |
| Two | Episode 5: "Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde" | Written with Robert Klane |
| Two | Episode 23: "Mail Call" | Directed |
| Three | Episode 16: "Bulletin Board" | Directed |
| Four | Episode 4: "The Late Captain Pierce" | Directed |
| Four | Episode 7: "Dear Mildred" | Directed |
| Four | Episode 8: "The Kids" | Directed |
| Four | Episode 16: "Dear Ma" | Directed |
| Five | Episode 2: "Margaret's Engagement" | Directed |
| Five | Episode 7: "Dear Sigmund" | Written and directed |
| Five | Episode 12: "Exorcism" | Directed |
| Five | Episode 19: "Hepatitis" | Written and directed |
| Six | Episode 2: "Fallen Idol" | Written and directed |
| Six | Episode 4: "War of Nerves" | Written and directed |
| Six | Episode 7: "In Love and War" | Written and directed |
| Six | Episode 12: "Comrades in Arms, Part 1" | Written; directed with Burt Metcalfe |
| Six | Episode 13: "Comrades in Arms, Part 2" | Written; directed with Burt Metcalfe |
| Seven | Episode 5: "The Billfold Syndrome" | Directed |
| Seven | Episode 8: "Major Ego" | Directed |
| Seven | Episode 14: "Dear Sis" | Written and directed |
| Seven | Episode 16: "Inga" | Written and directed |
| Seven | Episode 25: "The Party" | Written with Burt Metcalfe |
| Eight | Episode 3: "Guerilla My Dreams" | Directed |
| Eight | Episode 11: "Life Time" | Written with Walter D. Dishell, M.D.; Directed |
| Eight | Episode 15: "Yessir, That's Our Baby" | Directed |
| Eight | Episode 20: "Lend a Hand" | Written and directed |
| Eight | Episode 22: "Dreams" | Teleplay; story with James Jay Rubinfier; Directed |
| Nine | Episode 4: "Father's Day" | Directed |
| Nine | Episode 12: "Depressing News" | Directed |
| Nine | Episode 15: "Bottoms Up" | Directed |
| Nine | Episode 20: "The Life You Save" | Written with John Rappaport; Directed |
| Ten | Episode 6: "Communication Breakdown" | Directed |
| Ten | Episode 10: "Follies of the Living – Concerns of the Dead" | Written and directed |
| Ten | Episode 17: "Where There's a Will, There's a War" | Directed |
| Eleven | Episode 1: "Hey, Look Me Over" | Written with Karen Hall |
| Eleven | Episode 16: "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" | Written with Burt Metcalfe, John Rappaport, Dan Wilcox, Thad Mumford, Elias Davis, David Pollock and Karen Hall; Directed |