At 90, Alan Alda refuses to let Parkinson’s define him, calling the disease “just a hobby” and meeting it the same way he built a 70-year marriage: with laughter.
The actor, writer and director best known as Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H sat down with CBS News to talk about a long career, a hard childhood, and the illness he will not allow to write his story. He is blunt about the diagnosis. He is also funny about it.
That mix, clear eyes and a quick laugh, is the point. Alda treats Parkinson’s as a problem to work, not a label to wear.
Long before the Emmys, Alda had polio at age seven, before a vaccine existed. His father, Robert Alda, had just landed a big movie role as George Gershwin. About a week after shooting started, the boy got sick.
His parents had to put almost-scalding hot wool packs on every limb. Alda still remembers what that did to them.
"My father had just gotten a huge part in a movie, playing George Gershwin. And about a week after he started shooting, I got polio. And he and my mother had to administer the treatment, which was almost-scalding hot packs of wool on every limb. So, they were practically torturing their kid. I remember thinking it was hard on them."
Home life was unsettled in another way. His mother, Joan, a former beauty-pageant winner, lived with schizophrenia and paranoia. Sometimes she talked about a crack in the wall hiding a camera. Alda says that forced him to sort reality from fear, and made him more observant and more curious.
On Saturdays he stood in the wings and watched his father in the original cast of Guys and Dolls. The craft stuck. So did the habit of watching people closely.
M*A*S*H began on CBS in 1972 and ran 11 seasons. Alda won five of his six Emmy Awards for acting, writing and directing on that show. Between setups, the cast did not scatter to dressing rooms. They stayed in a circle of chairs, needling one another and laughing, then carried that ease onto the set.
"We didn't go back to our dressing rooms between shots. It was just, like, an hour or two hours where they light the new set, we stayed in our chairs in a circle and made fun of one another and laughed. And that connection that we had, we carried with us onto the set."
The finale drew more than 100 million viewers. Alda jokes that the usual figure is 106 million, “But I think it was probably more. Not that I'm greedy!” Doctors still stop him on the street.
"I have doctors coming up to me on the street all the time telling me that seeing me in the show made them want to become a doctor. Not a single one said it made them want to become an actor!"
He later played Sen. Arnold Vinick on The West Wing and lawyer Jack Burroughs in The Four Seasons. The through-line was the same: listen hard, stay human, keep the room alive.
In 2009, New York’s Stony Brook University founded the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. Alda’s worry was simple. Scientists and health professionals often speak in technical language the public cannot use. He brought acting tools, especially improvisation, into the training so experts would actually connect with the person in front of them. CBS’s Tracy Smith watched those methods in 2013.
"Improvisation really puts you in touch with the other person, and that's when I realized the value of connection."
Since 2018 he has hosted the podcast “Clear+Vivid,” with guests including Joy Behar, Paul McCartney, Michael J. Fox and Noah Wyle. The show is another version of the same project: real talk, no fog.
At 79, Alda had a symptom that was not widely known then: acting out his dreams. In one, someone attacked him. He grabbed a sack of potatoes and threw it. In the bedroom, he had thrown a pillow at his wife, Arlene.
"I had a symptom, which at the time was not that well-known: Acting out your dreams. I had a dream that somebody was attacking me. And I picked up a sack of potatoes and threw it at 'em. What I was really doing was throwing a pillow at Arlene, my wife."
He had no twitch, no tremor, no voice trouble at the time. A few years later he chose to discuss the Parkinson’s diagnosis openly. He does not soft-pedal the hard days. He also refuses the victim script.
"I don't let Parkinson's define me. It's not who I am. It's just a hobby."
Humor is not a side note. He calls it the best way to handle “anything that's a little bit of a problem.” Reality, he says, is a friend he will not wish away.
"I really think reality is my friend. I don't want to wish it away. I can't wish it away. I can't hope for a better future. I gotta accept what is."
The disease still barges into ordinary tasks. He will be writing an email when “Dr. Parkinson” drags his hand around the screen, deleting what he needs. Frustration comes. Then he looks for the joke and goes to tell Arlene.
"I'll be at the computer keyboard writing an email, and Dr. Parkinson is moving my hand all over the screen. I have the mouse, and he's eliminating things and he's deleting things that I need. Once in a while I get frustrated. But I find what makes me laugh about it, and then I go tell Arlene. Laughing first brought us together. We were invited to dinner at a friend's house. And Arlene was sitting at one end of the table, and I was sitting at the other end. And I noticed that she was laughing at my jokes. So already I was smitten. In March, we'll be married 70 years."
She helps button his shirt in the morning. Putting on socks can be a puzzle worth celebrating when it works. He has three daughters and eight grandchildren. He says he feels really good, and when hate for the disease creeps in, he asks what he has not tried yet.
"Of course, I feel that from time to time. I do hate it, but the only thing that's helpful is: what haven't I tried? And pretty soon, you get the feeling, 'If I keep looking for new ways to try this, I'll get a solution.' It's a puzzle. Will I be able eventually to put my socks on? The last time I put my socks on was a tremendous moment to celebrate!"
Alda’s answer to illness is older than any wellness slogan: tell the truth, stay married to your life, and laugh when you can. In an age that sells identity through grievance, a 90-year-old who calls Parkinson’s a hobby and still reaches for the joke is offering something sturdier than sympathy, personal responsibility with a smile.
Grit ages better than self-pity. Alda is still proving it.
