Alan Alda
Birthday:
Birthplace:
New York City, New York, USA
The son of actor Robert Alda, Alan Alda grew up around vaudeville and burlesque comedians, soaking up as many jokes and routines as was humanly possible. Robert Alda hoped that his son would become a doctor, but the boy's urge to perform won out. After graduating from Fordham University, Alda first acted at the Cleveland Playhouse, and then put his computer-like retention of comedy bits to good use as an improvisational performer with Chicago's Second City and an ensemble player on the satirical TV weekly That Was the Week That Was. Alda's first film was Gone Are the Days in 1963, adapted from the Ossie Davis play in which Alda had appeared on Broadway. (Among the actor's many subsequent stage credits were the original productions of The Apple Tree and The Owl and the Pussycat.) Most of Alda's films were critical successes but financial disappointments. He portrayed George Plimpton in the 1968 adaptation of the writer's bestseller Paper Lion and was a crazed Vietnam vet in the 1972 movie To Kill a Clown. Alda's signature role was the wisecracking Army surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972 through 1983. Intensely pacifistic, the series adhered to Alda's own attitudes towards warfare. (He'd once been an ROTC member in college, but became physically ill at the notion of learning how to kill.) During his M*A*S*H years, Alda also began auxiliary careers as a director and scriptwriter, winning numerous Emmy awards in the process. He also developed a separate sitcom, 1974's We'll Get By. In 1978, Alda took advantage of an unusually lengthy production break in M*A*S*H to star in three films: California Suite, Same Time, Next Year, and The Seduction of Joe Tynan. He made his theatrical-movie directorial debut in 1981 with The Four Seasons, a semiserious exploration of modern romantic gamesmanship; it would prove to be his most successful film as a director, with subsequent efforts like Sweet Liberty (1986) and Betsy's Wedding (1989) no where close. Long associated with major political and social causes and well-known both offscreen and on as a man of heightened sensitivity, Alda has occasionally delighted in going against the grain of his carefully cultivated image with nasty, spiteful characterizations, most notably in Woody Allen'sCrimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and as death row inmate Caryl Chessman in the 1977 TV movie Kill Me if You Can. Alda later continued to make his mark on audiences with his more accustomed nice-guy portrayals in films such as Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Flirting With Disaster (1996), and The Object of My Affection (1998).The next several years saw Alda show up in a handful of supporting roles, but in 2004, he had his biggest year in more than a decade. First, he appeared opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorcese's critically-acclaimed Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Playing Senator Ralph Owen Brewster, Alda would go on to receive a Best Supporting Actor Oscar-nomination, the first nod from the Academy in his long and impressive career. Meanwhile, on the small-screen, Alda played presidential-hopeful Arnold Vinick on NBC's political drama The West Wing, another Senator and his first regular series role since M*A*S*H. He would also enjoy recurring roles on 30 Rock and The Big C, and would continue to flex his comedy muscles in movies like Tower Heist and Wanderlust.
Photos
Highest Rated Movies
Filmography
MOVIES
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | BOX OFFICE | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|---|
94% | Marriage Story |
|
— | 2019 |
100% | The Bronx, USA |
|
— | 2019 |
90% | Itzhak |
|
— | 2018 |
90% | Bridge of Spies |
|
— | 2015 |
31% | The Longest Ride |
|
— | 2015 |
No Score Yet | Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee |
|
— | 2015 |
No Score Yet | Theodore Bikel: In The Shoes Of Sholom Aleichem |
|
— | 2014 |
59% | Wanderlust |
|
$17.3M | 2012 |
No Score Yet | Wanderlust: Bizarro Cut |
|
— | 2012 |
68% | Tower Heist |
|
$78.1M | 2011 |
78% | Behind The Burly Q |
|
— | 2010 |
No Score Yet | The Human Spark With Alan Alda |
|
— | 2010 |
61% | Flash of Genius |
|
$4.3M | 2008 |
82% | Nothing But the Truth |
|
— | 2008 |
35% | Diminished Capacity |
|
— | 2008 |
60% | Resurrecting the Champ |
|
$3M | 2007 |
86% | The Aviator |
|
$102.6M | 2004 |
No Score Yet | The Italian Americans |
|
— | 2004 |
54% | What Women Want |
|
$181.5M | 2001 |
No Score Yet | The Killing Yard |
|
— | 2001 |
No Score Yet | Keepers of the Frame |
|
— | 1999 |
52% | The Object of My Affection |
|
— | 1998 |
36% | Mad City |
|
— | 1997 |
33% | Murder at 1600 |
|
— | 1997 |
79% | Everyone Says I Love You |
|
— | 1996 |
87% | Flirting With Disaster |
|
— | 1996 |
No Score Yet | Neil Simon's 'Jake's Women' |
|
— | 1996 |
13% | Canadian Bacon |
|
— | 1995 |
No Score Yet | White Mile |
|
— | 1994 |
100% | And the Band Played On |
|
— | 1993 |
93% | Manhattan Murder Mystery |
|
— | 1993 |
33% | Whispers in the Dark |
|
— | 1992 |
50% | Betsy's Wedding |
|
— | 1990 |
94% | Crimes and Misdemeanors |
|
— | 1989 |
29% | A New Life |
|
— | 1988 |
No Score Yet | Lily Tomlin |
|
— | 1986 |
77% | Sweet Liberty |
|
— | 1986 |
No Score Yet | M.A.S.H. - Goodbye, Farewell, Amen |
|
— | 1983 |
77% | The Four Seasons |
|
— | 1981 |
86% | The Seduction of Joe Tynan |
|
— | 1979 |
54% | California Suite |
|
— | 1978 |
40% | Same Time, Next Year |
|
— | 1978 |
No Score Yet | Kill Me If You Can |
|
— | 1977 |
No Score Yet | Free to Be You and Me |
|
— | 1974 |
No Score Yet | The Glass House |
|
— | 1972 |
No Score Yet | To Kill a Clown |
|
— | 1972 |
No Score Yet | Playmates |
|
— | 1972 |
67% | The Mephisto Waltz |
|
— | 1971 |
No Score Yet | The Moonshine War |
|
— | 1970 |
No Score Yet | Jenny |
|
— | 1969 |
No Score Yet | Paper Lion |
|
— | 1968 |
No Score Yet | Purlie Victorious |
|
— | 1963 |
TV
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|
72% |
Ray Donovan
2013-2020
|
|
|
96% |
The Good Fight
2017-2020
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The View
1997
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Late Night With Seth Meyers
2014
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Charlie Rose
2013-2017
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Tavis Smiley
2013-2018
|
|
|
96% |
Horace and Pete
2016
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson
2005-2014
|
|
|
91% |
The Blacklist
2013
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Talk
2010
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Brains on Trial With Alan Alda
2013
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
CBS This Morning
2012
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Sunday Morning
2011-2018
|
|
|
55% |
The Big C
2010-2013
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Colbert Report
2005-2014
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Live From Lincoln Center
2000-2019
|
|
|
78% |
30 Rock
2006-2020
|
|
|
75% |
The West Wing
1999-2006
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
1999-2015
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2003
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
ER
1994-2009
|
|
|
43% |
The Academy Awards
1978-2020
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
M*A*S*H
1972-1983
|
|
|
Quotes from Alan Alda's Characters
Ira Levinson: | And in that moment, we both know that chance of life together was greater than the risk of being apart. |
Howard Hughes: | You want to go to war with me? |
Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: | It's not me, Howard. It's the United States Government. We just beat Germany and Japan. Who the hell are you? |
Albert Burnside: | Some time ago, I began to feel the personal human digression on Rachel Armstrong. And I told her that I was there to represent her and not her principle. And it was not until I met her that I realized that with great people there's no difference between principle and the person. |
President of the United States: | Release Honey pronto, or we'll level Toronto! |
Marcia Fox: | You're taking me to dinner, right? |
Marcia Fox: | You're taking me to dinner, right? |
Ted: | Yeah, right. Absolutely. Only we can't sleep together. |
Ted: | Right, absolutely! Only we can't sleep together, not tonight. |
Marcia Fox: | Why not? |
Marcia Fox: | Why not? |
Ted: | Not... not tonight. |
Ted: | Well, because I already slept with Helen Moss once today, and I'm not young and active like I used to be. |
Marcia Fox: | You'll do anything to catch a murderer, won't you? |
Ted: | Well, I already slept with Helen Moss once today, and I'm not young and active like I used to be. |
Ted: | Mmm-hmm. |
Marcia Fox: | You'll do anything to catch a murderer, won't you? |
Albert Burnside: | Sometimes a mistake is like wearing white after Labour Day, and sometimes a mistake is invading Russia in winter! |
Albert Burnside: | A man can live a good life, be honorable, give to charity, but in the end, the number of people who come to his funeral is generally dependent on the weather. |