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 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: One of the most prolific actors in television history -- with starring roles in 11 different television series under his belt -- Harry Morgan is most closely identified with his portrayal of Colonel Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H (1975-83). But his credits go back to the 1930s, embracing theater and film as well as the small screen. Born Harry Bratsberg in Detroit, Michigan, in 1915, he made his Broadway debut with the Group Theatre in 1937 as Pepper White in the original production of Golden Boy, alongside Luther Adler, Phoebe Brand, Howard Da Silva, Lee J. Cobb, Morris Carnovsky, Frances Farmer, Elia Kazan, John Garfield, Martin Ritt, and Roman Bohnen. His subsequence stage appearances between 1939 and 1941 comprised a string of failures -- most notably Clifford Odets' Night Music, directed by Harold Clurman; and Robert Ardrey's Thunder Rock, directed by Elia Kazan -- before he turned to film work. Changing his name to Henry Morgan, he appeared in small roles in The Shores of Tripoli, The Loves of Edgar Allen Poe, and Orchestra Wives, all from 1942. Over the next two years, he essayed supporting roles in everything from war movies to Westerns, where he showed an ability to dominate the screen with his voice and his eyes. Speaking softly, Morgan could quietly command a scene, even working alongside Henry Fonda in the most important of those early pictures, The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). Over the years following World War II, Morgan played ever-larger roles marked by their deceptive intensity. And even when he couldn't use his voice in a role, such as that of the mute and sinister Bill Womack in The Big Clock (1948), he was still able to make his presence felt in every one of his scenes with his eyes and his body movements. He was in a lot of important pictures during this period, including major studio productions such as All My Sons (1948), Down to the Sea in Ships (1949), and Madame Bovary (1949). He also appeared in independent films, most notably The Well (1951) and High Noon (1952). One of the more important of those roles was his portrayal of a professional killer in Appointment With Danger (1951), in which he worked alongside fellow actor Jack Webb for the first time. Morgan also passed through the stock company of director Anthony Mann, working in a brace of notable outdoor pictures across the 1950s. It was during the mid-1950s, as he began making regular appearances on television, that he was obliged to change his professional name to Harry Morgan (and, sometimes, Henry "Harry" Morgan), owing to confusion with another performer named Henry Morgan, who had already established himself on the small screen and done some movie acting as well. And it was at this time that Morgan, now billed as Harry Morgan, got his first successful television series, December Bride, which ran for five seasons and yielded a spin-off, Pete and Gladys. Morgan continued to appear in movies, increasingly in wry, comedic roles, most notably Support Your Local Sheriff (1969), but it was the small screen where his activity was concentrated throughout the 1960s.In 1966, Jack Webb, who had become an actor, director, and producer over the previous 15 years, decided to revive the series Dragnet and brought Morgan aboard to play the partner of Webb's Sgt. Joe Friday. As Officer Bill Gannon, Morgan provided a wonderful foil for the deadpan, no-nonsense Friday, emphasizing the natural flair for comic eccentricity that Morgan had shown across the previous 25 years. The series ran for four seasons, and Morgan reprised the role in the 1987 Dragnet feature film. He remained a busy actor going into the 1970s, when true stardom beckoned unexpectedly. In 1974, word got out that McLean Stevenson was planning on leaving the successful series M*A*S*H, and the producers were in the market for a replacement in the role of the military hospital's commanding officer. Morgan did a one-shot appearance as a comically deranged commanding general and earned the spot as Stevenson's replacement. Morgan worked periodically in the two decades following the series' cancellation in 1983, before retiring after 1999. He died in 2011 at age 96.

Trivia: Born February 6, 1939 in Minnesota, Mike Farrell was two years old when his family moved to LA; his father, a carpenter, had just gotten a lucrative movie-studio job. Exposed to showbiz from an early age, Farrell began acting in high school plays, hoping to pursue the theatre as a career. He was forced to put his thespic urges on the back burner during his hitch with the U.S. Marines, but upon being discharged he attended drama courses at Los Angeles City College and UCLA, and also studied at the Jeff Corey Workshop. He made his professional debut in a 1961 stage production of Rain, then spent several years playing bits in such films as Captain Newman MD (1963), The Graduate (1967) and Targets (1968). His first real break came in 1968, when he was cast as architect Scott Banning on the NBC daytime drama Days of Our Lives. Two years later, he put his John Hancock on a contract with Universal, playing supporting roles in such prime-times series as The Interns (1969) and Man and the City (1971).Unhappy with the type of roles offered him by his studio, Farrell asked for and received his release in 1975 when the opportunity came to audition for the popular sitcom M*A*S*H. Wayne Rogers had just left that top-rated series, leaving an opening in the category of "Hawkeye's Best Friend." Farrell read for the assignment, hit it off immediately with M*A*S*H leading-man Alan Alda (something Rogers had never been able to do), and was cast as wise-cracking army surgeon B. J. Hunnicutt, a role he'd fill until the series' final episode in 1983. Like Alda, Farrell directed several M*A*S*H episodes; also like Alda, he was a dedicated political and social activist, devoted to such causes as gay rights and prevention of child and spousal abuse. Since M*A*S*H's demise, Farrell has chosen to cut down on his acting appearances, preferring to direct; in addition to his series-TV work as director, he has also helmed the 1988 TV movie Run Till You Fall. In 1988, he co-produced the critically acclaimed theatrical feature Dominick and Eugene with Marvin Minoff , and reunited with Minoff to co-produce the 1998 drama Patch Adams. Though Farrell has guest starred in a number of television shows throughout the 1980s, 90s and 2000s (among them include Murder, She Wrote, Justice League, Matlock, and Desparate Housewives), his most significant television role since M.A.S.H was perhaps that of veterinarian Jim Hansen, whom he portrayed in the NBC drama Providence (1999 - 2002).

Trivia: In contrast to the insufferably intellectual characters he has played so often and so well, David Ogden Stiers wasn't much of a student while growing up in Eugene, Oregon. Like many another "underachiever," Stiers excelled at the things he was truly interested in, such as music (he played piano and french horn) and acting. After flunking out of the University of Oregon, Stiers stepped up his amateur-theatrical activities, and at age 20 was hired by the California Shakespeare Festival at Santa Clara, where he spent the next seven years performing the Classics. After briefly working with the famous San Francisco improv group The Committee, Stiers attended Juilliard, in hopes of improving his vocal delivery. Evidently his training paid off: in 1974, Stiers co-starred with Zero Mostel in the Broadway production Ulysses in Nighttown, then went on to appear opposite Doug Henning in the long-running musical The Magic Show. Despite his success, Stiers detested New York, and at the first opportunity he "ran screaming" back to the West Coast. He was cast in the short-lived sitcom Doc in 1975, and the following year played an important role in the 90-minute pilot for Charlie's Angels, though he passed when offered a regular assignment in the Angels series proper. Stiers' performance as a stuttering TV executive in a 1976 Mary Tyler Moore Show episode led to his being cast as the overbearing Major Charles Emerson Winchester on the ever-popular M*A*S*H; at first signed to a two-year contract, Stiers remained with the series until its final episode in February of 1983. Before, during and after his tenure on M*A*S*H, Stiers kept busy in made-for-TV films, lending his patented authoritativeness to such real-life characters as Dr. Charles Mayo (in 1977's A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story), critic and social arbiter Cleveland Amory (1984's Anatomy of an Illness) and President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1987's J. Edgar Hoover). He was also seen as pontificating DA Michael Reston in several of the Perry Mason TV-movies of the late 1980s. Disney animation devotees will remember Stiers for his voiceover work as Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast (1988) and Lord Ratcliffe in Pocahontas (1995). Stiers continued his work in film, voiceover work and television, appearing in projects like Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), voicing Jumba in Lilo & Stitch (2002) and playing the recurring role of Oberoth on Stargate Atlantis in 2007. Parlaying his lifelong love of classical music into a second career, David Ogden Stiers has served as guest conductor for over 70 major U.S. symphony orchestras.

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: 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.