Alan Alda

American actor, scriptwriter and director, a popular star from 1972. He garnered a huge following for his role as "Hawkeye" in the TV series "M.A.S.H.," which ran for 11 seasons and 251 episodes, racking up awards along the way. Alda won Emmy Awards for Best Actor, Best Writer and Best Director and the farewell episode, which Alda co-wrote and directed, was among the highest rated television shows ever. He commuted each week from his family home in suburban New Jersey to Hollywood so he could spend weekends with his wife, Arlene, whom he married in 1957, and their three daughters.

After winning his battle with polio as a child, Alda took an interest in writing and acting while in high school. The son of actor Robert Alda and Joan Browne, he joined his dad on stage in the early '50s, first appearing with his father at the Hollywood Canteen in 1951, doing imitations of Abbott and Costello. A graduate of Fordham University in 1956, he studied at an Improv Workshop, worked at the Cleveland Playhouse and in "Second City" in New York.

He first appeared on Broadway in "Only in America," which opened on 19 November 1959. His film debut was in 1963 in "Gone Are The Days." "The Owl and the Pussycat" opened on Broadway in November 1964. During his early years of getting established, he had to work on the side as a cab driver and at a gas station to keep up on rent money.

Alda, 6'2" tall, is known as even tempered, easy-going, considerate and modest, valuing his family and privacy.

At home, he is a dedicated tennis player. Around the mid-'70s, Alda emerged as the prototype of a New Man: liberal, sensitive, pro-feminine, opposed to all kinds of inequalities or sexism. One of his special interests was his series of specials on PBS, "Scientific American Frontiers." He did five of these shows a year on location, visiting China, tagging sharks and handling strange animals.