Actors - Alan Alda

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	Actors - Alan Alda

Alan Alda (born January 28, 1936 as Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo) is an American actor, writer, director and sometimes political activist.

He is most famous for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the television series M*A*S*H
. In the 1970s and 1980s he was viewed as the archetypal "sensitive male", though in recent years he has appeared in roles which counter that image.

Family and early life

Alda was born in New York City. His Italian-American father, Robert Alda (born Alphonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D'Abruzzo), was a successful actor, and his mother Joan Brown was crowned "Miss New York" in a beauty pageant. The adopted surname "Alda" is a contraction of "ALphonso" and "D'Abruzzo".

When Alan Alda was growing up, his parents divorced.

Alan Alda contracted polio when he was seven years old, which kept him bedridden for two years as he received treatments.

Alan Alda's half-brother, Anthony Alda was christened Antonio D'Abruzzo on the 9th of December 1956.

He received his bachelor's degree from Fordham University in 1956. During his junior year, he studied in Europe where he acted in a play in Rome and performed with his father on television in Amsterdam. After graduation, he joined the U.S. Army Reserve and served a six-month tour of duty as a gunnery officer in Korea following the Korean War. A year after graduation, he married Arlene Weiss, with whom he has three daughters: Eve, Elizabeth and Beatrice. Arlene Alda is a well known photographer, author and clarinettist.

Raised as a devout Catholic, he has since left the church but continues to celebrate religious holidays and events. His specific religious beliefs are difficult to define.

He is also an activist for feminist causes, and has been for many years.

Acting career, fame, and MA*SH

Alda began his career in the 1950s as a member of the Compass Players comedy revue.

In the eleven years (72-83) he starred in M*A*S*H
, he was nominated for 21 Emmy Awards winning five. He wrote (or co-wrote) twenty episodes, and directed thirty episodes. When he won his first Emmy Award for writing, he was so happy that he performed a cartwheel before running up to the stage to accept the award. He also was the first person to win Emmy Awards for acting, writing, and directing for the same series. Interestingly enough, the late Richard Hooker, who wrote the novel on which M*A*S*H was based, did not like Alan Alda's portrayal of Hawkeye Pierce (Hooker had based Hawkeye on himself), though Hooker didn't care for the show in general.

As more and more of the original series writers left the series, Alda gained more control and by the final seasons he had become project and creative consultant. Under his watch M*A*S*H more openly addressed political issues, often to the point of "preaching" to its audience. Because of this, some fans have criticized Alda taking more creative control of the series, feeling that his imbuing the series with his own political sympathies got in the way of writing good stories - jumping the shark in other words.

After MA*SH

Alda's prominence in the enormously successful M*A*S*H gave him a platform to speak out on political topics, and he has been a strong and vocal supporter of women's rights. As such, he has been something of a boogeyman for some political social conservatives who disagree with his views.

He has also appeared in at least two TV commercials. Both of these were in the small-computer industry, first for Atari and later, with the rest of the M*A*S*H cast, for IBM's PS/2 product line with MicroChannel architecture.

Alan Alda has also played Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman in the play QED, which has only one other character. Although Peter Parnell wrote the play, Alda both produced and inspired it. Alda has also appeared frequently in the films of Woody Allen, and he has been a guest star five times on ER, playing Dr. Gabriel Lawrence.

As of 2004, Alda is a regular cast member on the NBC program The West Wing, portraying Republican U.S. Senator and presidential hopeful Arnold Vinick. He made his premiere in the sixth season's tenth episode, "In The Room", and was added to the opening credits with the thirteenth episode, "King Corn."

Throughout his career, he has been nominated for the Emmy Award 31 times and the Tony Award twice, and has won seven People's Choice Awards, six Golden Globe awards, and three Director's Guild of America awards. However, it was not until 2004, after a long acting career, that Alda received his first nomination for an Academy Award. This was the Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as Senator Ralph Owen Brewster in Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator
.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Alan Alda ]

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Actors - Alan Alda

Family and early life

Acting career, fame, and MA*SH

After MA*SH

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Actors - Alan Alda

Family and early life

Acting career, fame, and M*A*S*H

After M*A*S*H

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Acting career, fame, and MA*SH

After MA*SH