Alan Alda: A Biography

Alan Alda has been revered by the feminist community and reviled by the conservative community for his outspoken support for the Equal Rights Amendment. Along the way, he managed to be a fundamental component of one of the best shows ever to appear on television. His acting, writing and directing helped make M*A*S*H one of the funniest and most successful television series. When you consider the context of the show that was a very hard task. Given that the series was set in a brutal war in a foreign land that was stalemated for most of the duration, it is amazing that it was so amusing. The answer is that it was not really about the Korean War, it was about people coping with problems any way they could. The Alda character of Hawkeye Pierce set the stage for everyone else. His brand of zaniness and love of life was infectious and taught the fundamental lesson that while life is hard; it can be made much more tolerable if you can find something to laugh about and try to take it a little less seriously. The real Alan Alda was never really displayed in public. I remember him appearing on Nightline to push for the ERA and on the Tonight show to plug his movie projects. Yet, he was always there for a purpose and he avoided personal anecdotes or stories. However, one thing was clear and that was that Alda was an extremely hard worker and generally well liked. Not only was he the star of M*A*S*H, but he also was involved in much of the writing. When the show ended and the news shows interviewed the players, it was clear that they genuinely liked each other. This book is not a tell-all book full of juicy details of Alda's private life. In that area, it is quite boring. There is nothing in the way of scandal and even the inevitable enemies he has made during his career were due to his drive and determination and not because he played any significant dirty tricks on them. The closest thing to such a problem was in the early days of filming M*A*S*H, when Alda did not intervene to try to eliminate problems.