By Alan Alda
Random House, $24.95 (U.S.) $33.95 (Cdn), 224 pages
I am a huge fan of the television program M*A*S*H. I regularly watch it twice a day in re-runs, and I can often recite the dialogue just before the actors’ delivery. M*A*S*H was, for me, innovative programming for two reasons: although it aired on the conservative leaning CBS network, it constantly delivered an anti-war message, and although the characters’ humorous lines in the operating room were some of the best on the show, the creators consistently respected the gravity of the operating room by forgoing the use of a laugh track to punctuate those scenes. The show, which originally aired on CBS from 1972-1983, was truly an ensemble series, but front and center for eleven years was the character Hawkeye, played by Alan Alda.
It was disappointing because Alda hardly sheds any light at all on the workings of M*A*S*H. There were only a couple of things mentioned here that I did not know about the series. First, Alan Alda’s own father was on the TV show twice, the best of which was when Robert Alda appeared as an brusque, arrogant surgeon who competes with Hawkeye in a constant cycle of one-upmanship, but ends up having to work cooperatively and communicate completely with Hawkeye, after each sustains a hand injury at an Aid Station. The other tidbit I did not know was that because Alan Alda did not want to uproot his family, he commuted weekly to California while he kept his family in New Jersey. Alda’s eleven years as the star of a top rated TV show gets dismissed here in less than a chapter.
And I guess that is also the interesting part. Alda, who was born in 1948, has spent nearly every phase of his life in and around entertainment. Playing Hawkeye was a role he came to savor and appreciate, but he writes here as if it does not surpass his other achievements and life’s lessons.
Alda literally grew up in the theatre wings. He says his first memories of the theatre were in the wings of a vaudeville theatre watching his father sing, dance, act and do comedy routines with an ever-changing cast of characters. Sometimes the dancing girls had to change costumes literally right in front of a then five-year-old Alan, and the life of those in theatre meant constantly being uprooted and rarely having job security. In spite of all that turmoil, Alda turned out to be well educated, creative, and family oriented.
Despite having a mother suffering from mental illness, an actor-father who was constantly in need of employment, and a wit more tuned to glib theatrics than academic pursuits, young Alda managed to get into Fordham University. An opportunity to go to France in his second year forced him to begin to study seriously, and at age 18, he miraculously found himself in Paris, where he read, lived, reveled and matured. Upon returning to New York, he met the love of his life, Arlene, to whom he is still married.
Alda’s career is remarkable, but told here it is much too slick and glossy. Alda’s lack of verifiable details, his lack of specific dates, and at times, lack of substance in general, makes the first two thirds of this book nothing more than a long-winded after dinner conversation with a gregarious egotist. The last part of the book, however, is really off the wall. A near-death medical emergency forced Alda into hospital, where he experienced several revelations in his personal philosophy, and he relates these effusively in the last of the book.
While I admire all of Alda’s stage and screen work, I found this work left me lukewarm. But, then, the title alone tells us not to take the book too seriously.
Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.