Alan Alda
"Hawkeye Pierce"
(Years 1-11)

Alan Alda gained international acclaim for his leading role as Hawkeye Pierce on Twentieth Television’s hit series M*A*S*H. He garnered an unprecedented number of awards for his portrayal of a surgeon "temporarily misassigned" to the Korean War.

During the course of the series’ eleven-year run on CBS, Alda was nominated for 21 Emmys. He won five of the golden statuettes, and became the first person to win the award as an actor, writer and director. In addition to his Emmys, Alda has won the Writer’s Guild Award twice, the Director’s Guild Award three times, six Golden Globes from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as Best Comedy Actor, and seven People’s Choice Awards. He also nabbed the coveted Humanitas Awad for writing the poignant episode "Dreams" (from a story by Alda and James Jay Rubinfier), which aired during the eighth season of M*A*S*H.

Alan Alda was born in New York City, the son of another distinguished actor, the late Robert Alda. His introduction to the theater came at the age of 16 in summer stock at Barnesville, Pennsylvania. During his junior year at Fordham University, he studied in Europe where he performed on stage in Rome and on television in Amsterdam with his father.

Alan Alda - An Unauthorized Biography
by Jason Bonderoff

After college, he could be seen on stage and on the small screen. He also acquired improvisational training with "Second City" in New York and "Compass" at Hyannisport. With a background in political and social satire, he became a regular on television’s "That Was the Week That Was."

Alda received critical acclaim for his performance on Broadway’s "The Owl and the Pussycat." Other Broadway credits include "Purlie Victorious," "Fair Game for Lover," for which he received a Theatre World Award, and "The Apple Tree," which garnered him a Tony nomination. He starred in Neil Simon’s "Jake’s Women" in 1992, another Tony-nominated role, which he recreated for the 1996 TV adaptation. More recently, he co-starred in the Tony Award-winning play "Art" and, in 2001, at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, he played the physicist, Richard Feynman, in "QED."

Alda’s first motion picture part came in "Gone are the Days," in which he recreated his stage role from "Purlie Victorious." He also appeared in "The Moonshine War," "Jenny," Twentieth Century Fox’s "The Mephisto Waltz," and "Paper Lion."

During the hiatus between the sixth and seventh seasons of M*A*S*H, Alda appeared in three motion pictures: "Same Time, Next Year," "California Suite" and "The Seduction of Joe Tynan." For the latter, he also authored the script. In 1980, Alda wrote, starred in and directed Universal’s "The Four Seasons," a huge critical and commercial success. He then went on to co-produce a television series version of "The Four Seasons" for CBS. When M*A*S*H ended its eleven-year network run, Alda wrote, directed and starred in two feature films, "Sweet Liberty" and "A New Life."

Veering from his powerful nice-guy image, he received rave reviews for his portrayal of an egotistical TV director in Woody Allen’s film "Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and for his performance in "Betsy’s Wedding" (1990). He also collaborated with Woody Allen again on "Manhattan Murder Mystery" in 1993, and, in 1997, in the romantic musical comedy "Everyone Says I Love You."

Alda also received praise for his pairing with Lily Tomlin as the aging hippie birth parents of Ben Stiller in David O. Russell’s film comedy "Flirting with Disaster" (1996).
He subsequently appeared in "Object of My Affection" (1998) with Jennifer Anniston and "What Women Want" (2000) with Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt and Marisa Tomei.

Alda made his directing debut on M*A*S*H, and followed with several sequences in the Marlo Thomas television special, "Free To Be…You and Me." He also created, wrote and co-produced the television series "We’ll Get By."

On television, he performed in "The Glass House" on CBS and the 90-minute television special of the Broadway hit, "6 Rms Riv Vu," co-starring Carol Burnett (which he also directed.) He received an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Caryl Chessman in "Kill Me If You Can." He appeared in the Emmy-winning profile of the AIDS crisis, "And the Band Played On." In 1999, he made recurring guest apearances in the popular TV series "ER" playing the role of Dr. Gabriel Lawrence. More recent TV credits in 2001 include the Showtime telefilms "The Killing Yard, the true story of the Attica Prison riot, and "Club Land." In 2002, he directed, wrote and appeared in the Fox 2-hour TV special "Mash: 30th Anniversary Reunion" reuniting original cast members and also including interviews with real-life doctors and nurses who served in the Korean War.

Alda is a life-long science buff who has been the host of the PBS series "Scientific American Frontiers" for the past eight years. Despite his crowded professional schedule, he has been actively involved, interviewing scientists and appearing in segments shot all over the world.
Don Freeman, the distinguished newspaperman and writer, had these remarks about Alda and his involvement with M*A*S*H: "Alda, through some curious and mysterious alchemy, can register emotions that cut through the marrow of human experience. It is his gift, a peculiar genius that goes beyond the demands of craft, to transport an audience as he articulates utter despair and compassion and monstrous fatigue and the wildest, most rarefied kind of humor -- all with surpassing honesty, which is also the hallmark of the show itself…"

A dedicated feminist, Alda’s civic duties include membership, since 1985, on the Board of the Museum of Broadcasting and, in 1989, election to the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation.

His wife, Arlene, is an award-winning professional photographer whose work has appeared in a number of major consumer magazines. She is the author of eight children’s books, in addition to one she co-wrote with Alda about the last week of M*A*S*H. They have three daughters: Eve, Elizabeth and Beatrice and several grandchildren.