Alan Alda is an Emmy Award-winning actor, author, and director. He is known for many roles but most famously for his role as Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce in the CBS megahit M*A*S*H*. He is 88 years old and born in the Bronx borough of New York City.
Alda is the son of actor Robert Alda, known for portraying George Gershwin in the biographical film Rhapsody in Blue. The younger Alda was born with the name of Alphonso Joseph D’Abruzzo. He contracted Poliomyelitis when he was seven years old in the early 40s. He earned a degree from Fordham University in English. He served in the United States Army in the mid-50s.
Alda made his first television appearance in 1958 on The Phil Silvers Show. In the 60s, he made occasional guest appearances on shows such as Coronet Blue and Route 66.
In 1972, Alda was cast as Captain Hawkeye Pierce for M*A*S*H*, a TV adaptation of the 1970 film MASH. Originally a comedy, the show evolved into a drama in many aspects. It depicted the crazy life of a mobile surgical hospital during the Korean War. He was with the show for its duration of 11 years, much longer than the war it portrayed. He appeared in all 256 episodes. Its final episode is among the highest-rated TV episodes of all time. He directed the final episode. He won five Emmy Awards for his work on 27 nominations.
During his M*A*S*H* run, Alda also appeared in a number of television movies. He took 10 years off from television work after his time playing the Army surgeon.
Alda continued acting post-M*A*S*H*. He is known for appearing in five episodes of NBC hits ER and 28 episodes of The West Wing. In 1993, he started hosting Scientific American Frontiers on American Public Television. He hosted 81 episodes over the next 13 years. In 1993, he had an Emmy nomination for the HBO television film And the Band Played On, a critically acclaimed docu-drama on the AIDS epidemic.
Alda had a short but memorable run on five episodes of the NBC megahit ER in 1999 where he played Dr. Gabriel Lawrence. In 2004 he joined the cast of The West Wing. He won the Emmy for Oustanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2006 for his work on the series. In more recent years, he has appeared on shows such as 30 Rock (Emmy nomination), The Big C, The Blacklist (Emmy nomination), The Goodnight, and Ray Donovan.
Alda first appeared on the silver screen in Gone Are the Days! in 1963. He starred in Same Time, Next Year which received some attention in 1978. The Four Seasons was a big hit in 1981. He appeared in Crimes and Misdemeanors in 1989, written and directed by Woody Allen. Manhattan Murder Mystery was a hit with critics but a box office flop in 1993. He had roles in Murder at 1600, What Women Want, Tower Heist, and Bridges of Spies. He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for The Aviator in 2004. Most recently, he appeared in Marriage Story in 2019.
Alda has appeared on the Broadway stage since the late 50s. He has three Tony Award nominations. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2008. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1994. Alda has written three memoirs over the last two decades. He hosts a popular podcast called Clear+Vivid.
Alda is an advocate for science communication. The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University trains STEM and medical professionals in communication skills. He supports several causes including Feeding America, Clothes Off Our Back, and the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. They founded the Jenjo Foundation in the 90s to help poor women and children.
Alda was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015. He has three children with Arlene Weiss (pictured). They have been married for 67 years. They live on New York’s Long Island.
