Trivia: 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.

Trivia: The son of a Rhodes Scholar, Wayne Rogers attended Princeton University and acted with the college's Triangle Club players, then forgot all about performing for several years. After navy service, Rogers headed to New York to learn the intricacies of the world of finance. But with aspiring actor Peter Falk as his roommate, it was only a matter of time before Rogers would again yearn for the smell of greasepaint. He took classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse while supporting himself as a busboy and lifeguard. During these lean years, Rogers amazed Falk and his other friends with his uncanny ability to invest his meager earnings into winning propositions. Even after making it as an actor, Rogers continued dispensing wise financial advice to his show-biz buddies, earning the affectionate soubriquet "The Wizard." After Broadway, film, and daytime soap opera experience, Rogers landed his first prime time TV starring role, playing hard-riding Luke Perry on the 1960 series Stagecoach West. During a lull in his acting career in the mid-1960s, Rogers suddenly turned producer, bankrolling a horror quickie called The Astro Zombies, from which he earned back a 2000% profit on a $47,000 investment. In 1972, Rogers was cast as irreverent army surgeon "Trapper John" McIntyre on a new sitcom called M*A*S*H. Three years later, he abruptly stopped showing up on the set. Claiming that the producers had promised him that he'd be the star of M*A*S*H, Rogers was incensed that Alan Alda had emerged as top dog, so he quit the series cold. The producers slapped on a $2.9 million breach of contract suit, whereupon Rogers countersued; these legal volleys went back and forth for over a year before an amenable settlement was ironed out. Like many other M*A*S*H bailouts, Rogers had difficulty finding success as a solo TV performer: of his three subsequent starring series, City of Angels, House Calls and High Risk, only House Calls (1979-82) lasted beyond its first season. Wayne Rogers has had better luck as the star of such made-for-TV movies as Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan (1975), It Happened One Christmas (1977), The Girl Who Spelled Freedom (1986) and American Harvest (1987). The founder of the Wayne Rogers & Company investment firm, the veteran film and television actor was given his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005. He died in 2015, at age 82.

Trivia: The daughter of Polish immigrants, Loretta Swit first performed before an audience at age 7, playing "The Snow Queen" in a dance recital in her home town of Passaic, NJ. Despite her mother's strenuous objections, Swit decided to make the theatre her life; she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then spent several years with the Gene Frankel Repertory Company. Admonished by casting agents to alter both her "unsaleable" name and her tad-too-large nose, she ignored this advice and persevered as a young character actress. Her first tangible success was in a Las Vegas production of Mame, in which she played the mousy housekeeper/stenographer Agnes Gooch opposite Susan Hayward's Auntie Mame. Arriving in Hollywood in 1970, Swit quickly garnered critical attention--and the effusive praise of her coworkers--for her offbeat guest-star characterizations in such series as Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible and Mannix. Upon learning that a TV version of the film hit M*A*S*H was in the works in early 1972, Swit energetically campaigned for the role of Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan--even though she'd sat through the original 1970 film with her eyes closed because she hated the sight of blood. Swit remained with M*A*S*H until its cancellation in 1983, winning two Emmy Awards along the way. During the series' occasional production layoffs, she starred in a number of made-for-TV movies, including the pilot episode of Cagney and Lacey (1981). In the decade since M*A*S*H's demise, Swit has been busier with her various political and social causes than with her acting career. Often as not, she chose the stage over TV or films during these years; in 1990, she won the Sarah Siddons award for her performance in the Chicago production of Shirley Valentine. A staunch animal-rights advocate, Loretta Swit was host of the 1992 cable-TV documentary series Those Incredible Animals (1992). In 1998 she appeared in the sex comedy Boardheads.

Trivia: Larry Linville is best known for playing weasel-like Major Frank Burns on the esteemed, long-running series M*A*S*H*. He began his career as a supporting actor in the pilot for the television series Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and made his feature-film debut in Jack Lemmon's Kotch (1971). Linville left M*A*S*H in 1977 after appearing on it for five years. Since then he appeared in low-budget films such as Rock and Roll High School Forever (1990) and Body Waves (1991). Linville also continued working on television in series such as Grandpa Goes to Washington (1978-1979) and Herbie the Love Bug (1982) and as a guest star in other series. Linville's stage appearances included a Broadway stint in Travels With My Aunt, though in the '90s, he was more likely to appear in dinner theater.

Trivia: American actor Gary Burghoff was the son of a Connecticut clockworks executive and a professional dancer. Under the aegis of his mother (the dancer), Burghoff studied tap dancing from age 5; he also trained himself to be a professional drummer, despite the fact that he'd been born with three deformed fingers on his left hand. Turning to acting, Burghoff found that his high piping voice and his 5'6" frame consigned him to child and teenager roles - which became a blessing when he was cast in the title role of the off-broadway musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1967. Director Robert Altman cast Burghoff as Cpl. "Radar" O'Reilly in his antiwar comedy M*A*S*H (1970); the name Radar was derived from the character's uncanny ability to anticipate what people were going to say and to sense when the "choppers" were bringing incoming wounded into the "Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" of the film's acronymic title. When M*A*S*H was converted into a TV situation comedy in 1972, Burghoff was the only member of the original movie cast to be signed for the series (It was not his first TV stint; he'd been a regular on 1970's Don Knotts Show). The actor played company clerk Radar from 1972 through 1979, winning an Emmy in the process and endearing himself to millions of fans. Not all his costars found Burghoff as lovable as Radar; he could be somewhat bullheaded on the set, especially when he felt that others weren't working to their fullest capacity. Except for occasional guest-star appearances - including an inevitable spot on Murder She Wrote, that settlement house of former sitcom stars - Burghoff hasn't worked much since M*A*S*H. This inactivity was by choice, in that Burghoff preferred to devote his time to his numerous pro-ecology and Animal Rights causes. In the late 1980s, Gary Burghoff was reunited with several of his M*A*S*H costars in a series of elaborately produced IBM television commercials. He would go on to make a smattering of apperances on TV, on shows like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

Trivia: Though he has appeared on several television series, including one named after himself, McLean Stevenson is best remembered for playing the slightly befuddled Lt. Colonel Henry Blake during the first three years of the long-running series M*A*S*H (1972-1983). He has also occasionally worked in feature films, making his debut in The Christian Licorice Store (1971). Stevenson made his television debut playing Michael Nicholson between 1969 and 1971 on The Doris Day Show. The son of an Illinois cardiologist, Stevenson did not become an actor until he was 31. Prior to that, he sold medical supplies, worked as an insurance clerk, was a seaman, and served as Northwestern University's athletics director. It was while at Northwestern that Stevenson earned a theater arts degree. According to Stevenson, the idea to become an actor came to him while he was walking across a football field watching the players. Believing that most of them were wasting their time, he thought it better to go to New York and act. Following his education, Stevenson did just that and spent much of the '60s performing in nightclubs and comedy spots as well as working in summer stock. He also wrote comedy for Tommy Smothers.

Trivia: Soft-spoken, blond supporting actor William Christopher is best remembered for portraying mild-mannered Father Mulcahy on the classic television comedy M*A*S*H (1972-1983), but his career began back in the mid-1960s, with guest spots on shows like The Patty Duke Show and The Andy Griffith Show. In 1983, he reprised the role of Mulcahy in the short-lived sitcom After M*A*S*H (1983-1984). Between 1996 and 1997, he and former M*A*S*H castmate Jamie Farr headlined a touring production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. He had a recurring role on Days of Our Lives in 2012, once again playing a priest. Christopher died in 2016, at age 84.

Trivia: The son of a Buffalo physician, Sorrell Booke was encouraged from an early age to entertain his relatives with jokes, songs, and imitations. An inveterate radio fan, young Booke would send away to the major networks for copies of scripts, then act out all the parts -- a different voice for each character -- in the privacy of his room. He turned his hobby into a vocation after high school, appearing with frequency in locally produced dramatic radio programs. While attending Columbia and Yale, Booke spent his summers playing old men in various stock companies, then appeared with the Provincetown Playhouse in Massachusetts. During the Korean War, Booke spent two years in counterintelligence, where his mastery of five languages came in handy. After making his Broadway debut in 1955, Booke understudied Tom Bosley in Fiorello! and created the role of bombastic white supremacist Ol' Captain Cotchipee in Ossie Davis' Purlie Victorious, repeating the latter assignment in the 1963 film version. For all his greyed-up character parts, Booke's most fondly remembered role of the early '60s was the mentally retarded brother of Martin Balsam in an episode of TV's Dr. Kildare. Likewise essayed with unexpected subtlety and sensitivity were his characters in the theatrical features Bye Bye Braverman (1968) and Up the Down Staircase (1970). But neither subtlety nor sensitivity were required for Booke's signature role: the lovably larcenous Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg on the weekly adventure series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985). Sorrell Booke's last film assignment was a typically blustery voice-over in the animated feature Rock-a-Doodle; he died of cancer in 1994, just one month after his 64th birthday.

Trivia: American actor Jamie Farr was the only son of a Lebanese butcher living in Toledo, Ohio. An easy target for bullies due to his short stature and large nose, Farr became the neighborhood clown to save himself from physical abuse. Humor gave him confidence, and by the time Farr graduated from high school he was a top student, extremely popular and active in numerous extra-curricular activities. Always a big movie fan, Farr harbored dreams of being an actor, and to that end studied at the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1955, Farr was cast in his first film (still billed under his own name, Jameel Farrah), The Blackboard Jungle, playing a redeemable hoodlum named Santini; shortly thereafter, he was cast in the Broadway production of No Time for Sergeants, just before he was drafted. The two years in the Army upset the momentum of Farr's career, and he found himself from 1958 through 1971 rebuilding himself from the ground up in bits and supporting roles. (Farr was not in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians during this period, as has often been reported; the cast of that turkey included a Broadway actor named Al Nesor, who bore a startling resemblance to Farr and played many of the same type roles). One of Farr's one-day bits was for the sixth episode of the new TV series M*A*S*H in 1972; Farr had the almost wordless role of a GI who dressed in women's clothing in hopes of getting out of the Army. The character of "Corporal Klinger" was meant to be a onetime joke, but the producers of M*A*S*H sensed possibilities in the character. By Season Two of M*A*S*H, Farr became a full supporting character; by Season Three he was being given co-starring billing in the series' opening credits sequence. After misguidingly "camping" the character in the earliest rehearsals, Farr played Klinger "straight" in every sense of the word: Neither gay nor transvestite, Klinger was simply a guy who'd go to great extremes to get out of military service. Gradually the character began to become fashion conscious, and before the eighties were over Klinger was making several fashion lists as one of the best-dressed characters on TV! Farr's role was expanded when Gary Burghoff left M*A*S*H in 1979; promoted to company clerk, Klinger began to thrive in the military, and the outrageous costuming was allowed to lapse. By the time M*A*S*H left the air, Klinger had taken a Korean wife, and Jamie Farr had become a true-blue celebrity. Unfortunately neither Farr nor Klinger were able to extend their audience appeal into the sequel series After M*A*S*H, not even when the scripts contrived to have Klinger become a fugitive from justice in a move to repeat his "outsider" status on M*A*S*H. Nonetheless, Jamie Farr has kept busy in the years following the cancellation of After M*A*S*H in 1984 with TV guest spots and stage appearances in such roles as Ali Hakim in Oklahoma and Evil Eye Fleegle in Li'l Abner. Farr would continue to appear regularly on screen in the years to come, appearing in movies like Scrooged, and on TV shows like Diagnosis Murder and Mad About You.

Trivia: While serving his two-year hitch in the Army, Jack Riley performed in "Rolling Along of 1960," a military travelling show. After his discharge, Riley attended John Carroll University, then resumed his show-business activities as an actor, comedian, and "special material" writer for such stars as Mort Sahl, Rowan and Martin and Don Rickles. He made his film debut in 1962's The Days of Wine and Roses, and later essayed eccentric roles in such laugh-spinners as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1979). Active in television since 1966, Riley was a comedy-ensemble player in Keep on Truckin' (1975) and The Tim Conway Show (1980 edition), and occasionally popped up on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, impersonating Lyndon Johnson. His most celebrated TV role was the supremely paranoid Elliot Carlin in The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78), a role he later reprised (under various character names) in such series as Alf and St. Elsewhere. He was also cast as TV station manager Leon Buchanan in the two-episode sitcom Roxie (1987), and was heard as the voice of Stu Pickles on the animated series Rugrats (1991- ). Extremely active in the LA theatrical scene, Jack Riley starred in such stage productions as 12 Angry Men and Small Craft Warnings. RIley died in 2016, at age 80.