Alan Alda Biography

Actor

Name at birth: Alphonso D'Abruzzo

Alan Alda is best known for his 11 years playing cheeky surgeon Hawkeye Pierce on TV's M*A*S*H (1972-83). He won five Emmy Awards for the show, including wins for acting, directing and writing. Alda also has appeared on the Broadway stage and in dozens of movies, and is known as a strong supporter of women's rights. He is also the longtime host of the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers. His feature films include: California Suite (1978, with Jane Fonda); The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979, with Meryl Streep); Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989, by Woody Allen); Flirting with Disaster (1996, with Mary Tyler Moore); and Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), for which he received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. In 2004 he joined the cast of TV's The West Wing as Senator Arnold Vinick.

Extra credit: Alda originated the role of physicist Richard Feynman in the 2001 play QED... Alda is the son of stage and screen actor Robert Alda.

Other M*A*S*H-related actors include McLean Stevenson (Col. Blake), Gary Burghoff (Radar O'Reilly) and Loretta Swit ('Hot Lips' Houlihan)... Alda joins Randolph Mantooth in our loop on Hunky Docs.