ALAN ALDA Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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ALAN ALDA

Alan Alda has recently had the distinction of being nominated for an   
Oscar, a Tony, and an EMMY -- as well as publishing a bestselling     
book -- all in the same year.                                         
His memoir, entitled Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and Other Things     
I’ve Learned, became a New York Times bestseller.                     
His 2005 EMMY nomination was for his role as Arnold Vinick,           
Republican candidate for the presidency on "The West Wing" (which     
brought him two SAG Award nominations in the same year, Best Actor     
and Best Ensemble in a Drama Series). He also received a Tony         
nomination for his role in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's       
"Glengarry Glen Ross." On film that year, he appeared in Martin       
Scorsese’s "The Aviator," for which he received a nomination for an   
Academy Award and was also nominated for a British Academy Award.     
2006 honors include his 32nd Emmy nomination and winning his sixth     
Emmy for his appearance on "West Wing" (Best Supporting Actor in a     
Drama Series) as well as the National Science Board’s Public Service   
Award, and his induction into the American Academy of Arts and         
Sciences.                                                             
He has earned international recognition as an actor, writer and       
director. In addition to "The Aviator," Films include "Crimes and     
Misdemeanors," "Everyone Says I Love You," "Flirting With Disaster,"   
"Manhattan Murder Mystery," "And The Band Played On," "Same Time,     
Next Year" and "California Suite," as well as "The Seduction of Joe   
Tynan," which he wrote, and also "The Four Seasons," "Sweet           
Liberty," "A New Life," and "Betsy’s Wedding," all of which he wrote   
and directed.                                                         
For his role in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" he won the     
D.W. Griffith Award, the NY Film Critics Award, and was nominated     
for a British Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor.                 
On Broadway, he has appeared as the physicist Richard Feynman in the   
play "QED." He starred in the first American production of the         
international hit play "ART." In addition to his nomination for       
"Glengarry," he was also nominated for the Tony Award for his         
performances in Neil Simon's "Jake’s Women" and the musical "The       
Apple Tree." Other appearances on Broadway include "The Owl and the   
Pussycat", "Purlie Victorious" and "Fair Game for Lovers" for which   
he received a Theatre World Award.                                     
On television, he hosted the award winning series "Scientific         
American Frontiers" on PBS for eleven years, interviewing leading     
scientists from around the world.                                     
He played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series "M*A*S*H,"   
and also wrote and directed many of the episodes. Alda is the only     
person to be honored by the TV Academy as top performer, writer and   
director. His 32 Emmy nominations include one in 1999 for his         
performance on "ER." In 1994 he was inducted into the Television       
Hall of Fame.                                                         
Other Television performances include "Truman Capote's The Glass       
House" and "Kill Me If You Can," for which he received an Emmy         
nomination for his portrayal of Caryl Chessman, the inmate who spent   
12 years on death row.                                                 
He has won the Director’s Guild Award three times for his work on     
television, and has received six Golden Globes from the Hollywood     
Foreign Press Association, and seven People's Choice Awards, and has   
been nominated for two Writer's Guild Awards.                         
Alan Alda was born in New York City, the son of the distinguished     
actor, Robert Alda. He began acting in the theater at the age of 16   
in summer stock in Barnesville, Pennsylvania.                         
During his junior year at Fordham University, he studied in Europe     
where he performed on the stage in Rome and on television in           
Amsterdam with his father.                                             
After college, he acted at the Cleveland Playhouse on a Ford           
Foundation grant. On his return to New York, he was seen on           
Broadway, off-Broadway and on television. He later acquired           
improvisational training with "Second City" in New York and           
"Compass" at Hyannisport. That background in political and social     
satire led to his work as a regular on television's "That Was the     
Week That Was."                                                       
For twenty years he was a member of the Board of the Museum of         
Television & Radio, and for ten years, from 1989 to 1999, he was a     
Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.                                 
His wife, Arlene, is the author of fourteen children's books. An       
award winning professional photographer, her work has appeared in a   
number of magazines and books. They have three daughters and seven     
grandchildren.