Alan Alda

Alan Alda (born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo; January 28, 1936) is an American actor, author, screenwriter, podcast host and director.

Alda was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo on January 28, 1936, in Manhattan, New York City.

He spent his childhood travelling around the United States with his parents, in support of his father's job as a performer.

His father, Robert Alda (born Alfonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D'Abruzzo), was an actor and singer; and his mother, Joan Browne, was a homemaker and former beauty-pageant winner.

His father was of Italian descent (D'Abruzzo is a toponymic surname) and his mother of Irish descent.

When Alda was seven, he contracted polio.

To combat the disease, his parents administered a painful treatment regimen developed by Sister Elizabeth Kenny, consisting of applying hot woollen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles.

Alda attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York.

He studied English at Fordham University in the Bronx, where he was a student staff member of its FM radio station, WFUV.

During his junior year, he studied in Paris, acted in a play in Rome, and performed with his father on television in Amsterdam.

Alda began his career in the 1950s as a member of the Compass Players, an improvisational comedy revue directed by Paul Sills.

He later joined the improvisational group Second City in Chicago.

In 1956, Alda received his Bachelor of Arts degree.

A member of the ROTC, he entered the United States Army Reserve and served for six months at Fort Benning.

Despite some erroneous reports on military sites that Alda then served in Korea, he has repeatedly said he did not serve there, instead following up active duty of six months at Fort Benning with a time in the reserves in New York City.

Alda's half-brother Antony Alda was born in 1956 and also became an actor.

Alda said he became a Mainer in 1957 when he played at the Kennebunkport Playhouse.

He joined the acting company at the Cleveland Play House during their 1958–1959 season as part of a grant from the Ford Foundation, appearing in productions such as To Dorothy a Son, Heaven Come Wednesday, Monique, and Job.

In 1958, he appeared as Carlyle Thompson III on The Phil Silvers Show in the episode titled "Bilko the Art Lover".

Alda is also known for his roles on Broadway acting in Purlie Victorious (1961) and receiving three Tony Award nominations for his performances in The Apple Tree (1967), Jake's Women (1992), and Glengarry Glen Ross (2005).

Alda portrayed Charlie Cotchipee in the 1961 Ossie Davis play Purlie Victorious on Broadway.

In the November 1964 world premiere at the ANTA Playhouse of the stage version of The Owl and The Pussycat, he played Felix the Owl, opposite Pussycat played by actress/singer Diana Sands, an African-American actress; their onstage kiss prompted hate mail.

He continued to play Felix the Owl for the 1964–65 Broadway season.

Alda was part of the cast, along with David Frost, Henry Morgan and Buck Henry, of the American television version of That Was The Week That Was, which ran as a series from January 10, 1964, to May 1965.

He made his Hollywood acting debut as a supporting player in Gone Are the Days!, a film version of the Broadway play Purlie Victorious, which co-starred Ruby Dee and her husband, Ossie Davis.

In 1966, he starred in the musical The Apple Tree on Broadway with Barbara Harris, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for the role.

Other film roles followed, such as his portrayal of author, humorist and actor George Plimpton in the film Paper Lion (1968), as well as The Extraordinary Seaman (1969), and the occult-murder-suspense thriller The Mephisto Waltz with actresses Jacqueline Bisset and Barbara Parkins.

During this time, Alda frequently appeared as a game show panelist on the 1968 revival of What's My Line?, and on I've Got a Secret during its 1972 syndication revival.

A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner and a three-time Tony Award nominee, he is best known for playing Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the CBS wartime sitcom M*A*S*H (1972–1983).

He also wrote and directed numerous episodes of the series.

After starring in the films Same Time, Next Year (1978), California Suite (1978), and The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), he made his directorial film debut The Four Seasons (1981).

Other notable film roles include in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Flirting with Disaster (1996), Tower Heist (2011), Bridge of Spies (2015), and Marriage Story (2019).

Alda won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Senator Arnold Vinick in the NBC series The West Wing.

Other Emmy-nominated roles include in And the Band Played On in 1993, ER in 2000, 30 Rock in 2009, and The Blacklist in 2015.

Alda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Owen Brewster in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004).

In 2008 he received a Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording nomination for Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself.

He also had recurring roles in The Big C (2011–2013), Horace and Pete (2016), Ray Donovan (2018–2020), and The Good Fight (2018–2019).

In a 2013 interview, he joked that he was in charge of a mess tent.

In 2019, Alda received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

He hosts the podcast Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda and previously hosted Science Clear + Vivid.