For those of you who are familiar with the tv-series M*A*S*H, the name Alan Alda should be familiar. Even if you are too young to have watched it; the striking way in which the title is written, may jolt a memory. Alda is known as the funniest military doctor for his portrayal of Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H. He is now in his 80s and has revealed that he is living with Parkinsonâs disease. So far; no cure has been found for Parkinsonâs but Alda is one of many high profile people who have despite the debilitating effects of the disease physically embraced the philosophy of not giving up and continuing to work and live the life they have chosen. Other examples are the singer of âSweet Carolineâ, Neil Diamond who has vowed to write and record despite his diagnosis; Jesse Jackson, the anti-apartheid stalwart who has decided to use his diagnosis of Parkinsonâs to find a cure for âa disease that afflicts 7 to 10 million people worldwideâ, Actor Michael J Fox and Scottish comedian Billy Connolly who has kept up performances despite his deteriorating condition. Alan Alda is also continuing to work as an actor and as Ellen Gamerman writes in the Wall Street Journal; the director of his latest film âMarriage Storyâ does not try to hide the symptoms of Parkinsonâs in the movie. Alda has also come up with a cunning plan to protect his wife from his dreams. – Linda van Tilburg
In âMarriage Story,â Alan Alda lets his Parkinsonâs show
The 83-year-old actor, who announced last year that he is living with Parkinsonâs disease, plays a scattered but principled lawyer in the movie about a scorched-earth divorce starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. The film from director Noah Baumbach doesnât mask Mr. Aldaâs shaking hands but keeps them in the frame, a visual contrast to the slick moves of the sharklike lawyers elsewhere in the movie.
The actor best known as âHawkeyeâ Pierce in the TV series âM*A*S*Hâ learned he had the nervous-system disorder in 2015 after his wife Arlene Alda told him he wasnât swinging his arms when he walked. He began acting out his dreams in his sleep too, another early sign of Parkinsonâs. Soon after, Mr. Alda got the diagnosis. To cope, he wedged a pillow between himself and his wife of 62 years to make it harder to reach her in those sleeping episodes and began an exercise regimen to lessen his symptoms that included boxing and marching to Sousa music.
But he didnât stop working. Aside from âMarriage Story,â which opens in theatres this week and debuts on Netflix Dec. 6, Mr. Alda this month returns as a psychiatrist in the new season of the Showtime series âRay Donovan.â He also hosts an interview podcast âClear + Vividâ and remains active in the Alan Alda Centre for Communicating Science. The centre at Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY, uses improvisational theatre techniques to improve the communication skills of scientists, doctors and other professionals.
The Wall Street Journal recently spoke with Mr. Alda about divorce, acting through his disease, and one of the first times âM*A*S*Hâ used tragedy to make a point. Here, an edited transcript.
âMarriage Storyâ paints a grim picture of divorce. Have you seen many friends go through the experience?
I have. The ironic thing about a divorce is that youâre probably getting divorced because of a real breakdown in communication. And now youâre facing a time in your life when you have to communicate even better for your children. The very thing that tore you apart is what you need more of to have a divorce that doesnât wreck your life. Whatâs interesting to me is how this movie remains a love story in spite of the divorce. Theyâre cooperating better at the end than they are in the beginning.
The movie is filled with scheming attorneys, but you play one with compassion. How do you feel about lawyers?
As a young man sometimes Iâd be stolen from by a producer who thought I was too nice a guy to resist, and I used to love a good lawsuit. I think a lot of people who are not outwardly aggressive get mistaken for patsies. Itâs always good to set the other guy straight.
How did you decide you didnât want to hide signs of your illness in the movie?
I left it up to Noah. I said, âI have this tremor. You can handle it any way you want.â Itâs not part of the script so I didnât want it to be distracting if Noah thought it would be distracting.
How do you expect the disease to affect your career?
I take what comes my way and I make the most of it. I donât know if it will change things or not. The one kind of funny thing about it is, Iâve been doing âRay Donovanâ with Liev Schreiber and playing his psychiatrist and I said the same thing to them. âI got this tremor. You can cut around it if you want.â They said it would be interesting if the character had Parkinsonâs, so I said OK. The way they wrote the character, his tremors are worse than mine, so I have to fake it a little bit.
Are you glad youâre able to be open about it on screen?
Iâm not in the business of pretending Iâm not sick. One of the reasons I talk in public about it was it helped remove some of the stigma, because I know people who have recently been diagnosed who feel that their lives are over, and theyâre shocked and dismayed. Itâs a common reaction to get depressed, and itâs really not necessary. I mean, it can get really bad, but your life isnât over. You donât die from it, you die with it.
On your podcast, you ask guests what thing they wish they really understood. How do you answer that question?
Why are we the way we are, so capable of nurture and torture at the same time? There are very few of us who, given the right circumstances, arenât capable of both.
Going back to âM*A*S*H,â it seems like an early example of a TV comedy laced with drama that we see so much of now. How do you see tragedy as relevant to comedy?
When the first patient died on the table in âM*A*S*H,â the people who ran CBS at the time were very upset. One of them said, âWhat is this, a situation tragedy?â It opened the door for us to face more of the reality of war. I donât know why they were surprised. Our intention was never to hide the pain of the lives of the people we were showing.
