Movies - H. Richard Hornberger

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	Movies - H. Richard Hornberger

H. Richard Hornberger (February 1, 1924 – November 4, 1997) was an American writer and surgeon, born in Trenton, New Jersey, who wrote under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. His most famous work was M*A*S*H
(1968), which served as the basis for a successful movie and television series. He had been a physician for the United States Army during the Korean War, and used his experience at the 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as background for his work.

Hornberger based the character of Hawkeye Pierce on himself, although reportedly he did not like Alan Alda's portrayal in the TV series.

Hornberger wrote two sequels, M*A*S*H Goes to Maine (1972) and M*A*S*H Mania (1977), neither of which enjoyed the commercial success of the original. Both books' portrayals of the characters were entirely independent of the movie and TV characterizations (in M*A*S*H Mania, Hooker has Hawkeye observe that he enjoys going down to the State University once in a while to "kick the shit out of a few liberals"). In addition, there was an extensive series of books (bearing Hooker's name but ghostwritten by William E. Butterworth) in which the characters travel to Moscow, New Orleans, San Francisco, Paris, etc. These were hastily written to capitalize on the TV show's popularity and of dubious literary merit. The action was transposed to the 1970s so that people such as Henry Kissinger could be lampooned, but this would have made some of the characters quite old, if the descriptions in the first book were to be believed. For instance, Hot Lips would have been into her 60s, having been described as "fortyish" in the first novel.

Even after the success of his book and its screen adaptations, Hooker remained a surgeon in Waterville, Maine until his retirement in 1988.

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