Why Did All The M*A*S*H Actors Careers Die With The Show?

Not hot enough

Alan Alda went on to steady movie work; he's especially good in Crimes and Misdemeanors, Manhattan Murder Mystery, and Flirting with Disaster.

I don't know, "Hello, Larry" was a rip-roarin' good time with that really big guy and two versions of the older sister dancing around McLean Stevenson

Most people from hit shows don’t go on to have big successes again. If they’re lucky they got a supporting role in another series or do a lot of guest roles. Now they’d wind up in Lifetime tripe.

Within the context of the show, those actors were a great ensemble act. Out of it, who the fuck want to watch a movie, TV series, or pay with Harry Morgan or Jamie Farr

Loretta Swit could'have done Cagney And Lacey.

I love Same Time, Next Year.

Total campfest.

Jamie Farr was HIGH-LARRY-US

[quote] Loretta Swit could'have done Cagney And Lacey.

Thank god she didn't.

Harry Morgan had a long and successful career in movies and TV before MASH, including December Bride, Pete & Gladys, and Dragnet. As he was pushing 70 when MASH ended, I hope he was able to retire happily instead of scrambling for other roles (AfterMASH excepted; that one was created for him).

Loretta would have been better on Kate and Allie and Margaret

Loretta was a horrible actress and super unpleasant.

Wayne Rogers became a financial advisor. Larry Linville died just a few years after the show ended. Gary Burghoff ... well, see r1.

Loretta Swit must be the luckiest actress of the 1970s.

[quote]Harry Morgan had a long and successful career in movies and TV before MASH, including December Bride, Pete & Gladys, and Dragnet. As he was pushing 70 when MASH ended, [bold]I hope he was able to retire happily instead of scrambling for other roles[/bold](AfterMASH excepted; that one was created for him).

Yeaaaahhh, too bad his poor wife had to "scramble" away from Harry's fists.

After the show ended they were probably all very comfortably financially and didn't really need to work unless they wanted to. None of them were cut out to be superstars.

I always thought Mike Farrell was exceptionally likeable, and I was glad when a few years ago he showed up on THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE.

And Rosalind Chao of course was on both ST: NEXT GENERATION and DEEP SPACE NINE... although she was unappealingly cast as a shrewish wife ("Miles!").

Loretta did some TV movies but had some REALLY scary plastic surgery. Just weird lips and wigs for days. I read she was very unpleasant post-MASH as well. She threw a fit while shooting a Burger King commercial that the prop burger had too big of a bite out of it and she would look like a pig.

Alan Alda’s Mr. Sensitive act got old especially because he was an ass on set as well. Just ask Catherine O’Hara. She just groans when his name comes up.

Harry Morgan, Jamie Farr and William Christopher tried to remain tv stars with an execrable spinoff called "AfterMASH." It of course flopped.

Gary Burghoff, who left MASH supposedly because he didn't want to continue doing a tv series, tried to be the star of one called "W*A*L*T*E*R. Seems after Radar went home to Iowa he gets married but his wife leaves him for another man right after the wedding. He grew up on a farm but is a failure as a farmer and he loses the family farm and all its livestock. He packs his mother off to live with an Aunt and moves to St. Louis to be a cop. UGH.. A pilot of the show was aired but that was it. No series developed. A good thing too' it would have been even worse than AfterMASH.

It's the curse of Poltergeist!

David Ogden Stiers was in a few Woody Allen movies.

Loretta Swit had that bulldog face though. I never got her.

R18. That but about Lorretta made me laugh hard and if to makes me love her all the more. A friend of mine met her at the convention last year and said she was sweet as could be to everybody in line and was even handing out hand sanitizer.

r6 and r9 Loretta Swit WAS in "Cagney & Lacey." She was the original Christine Cagney in the pilot.

Loretta survived Helen Lawson, so...

There was a TV station that ran three C&L episodes a night. If you caught it right as they were cycling the episodes, you could watch the last Daly/Gless episode followed by the Daly/Swit pilot followed by the first Daly/Foster episode.

Loretta Swit's only marriage was to Dennis Holahan. He was about a thousand times prettier than she was. He was in a MASH episode called where he played a Swedish delegate visiting the 4077. It's a rather grotesque episode because Hot Lips takes one look at the handsome Swede and gets wet. She practically drools over him and flings herself at him, even coming to his tent to initiate sex with him. Swit said that as soon as she laid eyes on Holahan she realized he was her soulmate. They married...and divorced. Supposedly he tries to soak her out of as big a divorce settlement as he could get. He was married once before Swit and had two kids but I saw a photograph of him where he pinged to high heaven. My guess is that her "soulmate" turned out to like cock. At any rate, Holahan is a lawyer and has been for a long time. Poor Loretta; he must have turned out to be a real jerk.

R27 your episode description cracks me up.

[quote]I always thought Mike Farrell was exceptionally likeable,

So did I

Alan Alda got an Oscar, Tony and Emmy nomination all in one year in 2005. He did ok.

[quote]Larry Linville died just a few years after the show ended.

He died in 2000. That was 17 years later!

Trapper John MD went on to be a pretty big hit that last for a few seasons.

I wasn’t around for MASH but I really wish I could understand it. It never made any sense to me.

OP, have you never heard of The Alan Alda Collection? He has quite a filmography.

I always get Alan Alda and Judd Hirsch mixed up.

Alan Alda's simpering sensitive act in the eighties was insufferable. I can't even stand looking at him anymore. And I never found M*A*S*H to be either funny or moving. Another overrated piece of garbage from the seventies.

None of the actors on MASH were exceptionally talented. But they did sitcom level acting well enough.

Alda also hosted a show on PBS for a number if years.

Trapper John MD starred Pernell Roberts of Bonanza fame, not Wayne Rogers who played the character on the sitcom.

I saw Alda on Broad City too

He was also on Showtime's [italic]The Big C[/italic] as Laura Linney's doctor.

Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit, and Jeff Maxwell (Igor) at the Indiana Comic Convention this past May. Loretta's face work has settled and she looks great for 84.

^That Hero security guard was hot.

MASH actors do Comic Conventions?

Poor Mildred, R15!

She should have left her nose alone R41.

I really wanna know what went through her head when the surgeon took the bandages off of her ruined face.

R27 - Here's Dennis smelling cookies with Ted Shackelford. They were in a short-lived sitcom together called "Who's the Top?"

R13 Larry Linville didn't die until 2000, 17 years after the show ended.

The [bold]pilot movie[/bold] had Loretta Swit in the role of Cagney, while the first six episodes had Meg Foster in the role.

When the show was revived for a full-season run, Gless portrayed the role for six consecutive years.

Sadly not all. Smug asshole Alan Alda was like dogshit on a shoe. Years and years on, you couldn't get rid of the stink of his bad acting and sanctimony.

My favorite Alda has always been Rutanya. Probably because she's not related to those two gasbags.

By the way, Alan's birth name is Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo. I guess that wouldn't fit on the TV screen.

Is MASH that TV show that went off the air 40 YEARS ago?

Loretta is the star of one of my all-time favorite made-for-tv Christmas movies, 'The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,' based upon the terrific YA book of the same name. A very young Fairuza Balk plays Swit's daughter (this was even before Balk's turn as Dorothy in Return to Oz) and it's a very sweet film, though Swit's entire wadrobe is made up of off-white cowl neck sweaters and lady khakis which are never flattering on women.

[quote]Is MASH that TV show that went off the air 40 YEARS ago?

No. I went off the air 39 years ago.

Final episode aired February 28, 1983.

[quote] Is MASH that TV show that went off the air 40 YEARS ago?

It's shown in endless reruns on Me Tv. It's still being watched today. It was one of the most popular sitcoms of all time.

Mike Farrell worked. He played the dad on that Melina Kanakaredes show Providence.

Jamie Farr is a right wing conservative - hardcore.

My mother thought Loretta was one of the ugliest women on television. She said that she resembled Miss Piggy.

[quote] My mother thought Loretta was one of the ugliest women on television. She said that she resembled Miss Piggy.

Your mother was right. Her looks were passable for a while but she just kept getting harder to look at. And those wigs! One of them looked like it belonged on Harpo Marx. I think her new curly mop of hair was explained by saying Hot Lips had given herself a permanent. It was strange to hear all the talk on the show about how sexually desirable she was, because she became more and more unattractive as the show went on.

Most of them went on to fine guest appearances on Murder, She Wrote

This pretty much happens with all actors on long-running shows. They get so linked to their characters they can't break the mold. Very few manage. Look at Lost - none of them have had a career despite being big stars when the show was on.

[quote] Look at Lost - none of them have had a career despite being big stars when the show was on.

You haven't sen an Ant-Man movie, I take it. Or Hawaii 5-0.

We were just really sick of them after all those years on that over-praised show.

Because career suicide is painless.

My father noted Swit was built like a Coke bottle. He wasn't disapproving, mind.

She was shapely.

I think Gary Burghoff's career died primarily because he could be a nasty cunt to work with. By the time he left MASH he was on the outs with many of the cast and crew. Plus he had the problem with the crab claw hand. Too hard to shoot around I reckon.

Trust me, guys -- 6.8 million U.S. troops served during the Korean War period, of which 22,000 were women. Any woman who served was automatically attractive just by virtue of being female.

And BTW, for you young'uns, the appeal of M*A*S*H* (since it appears to have eluded you) was that it was an allegory of/commentary on the Vietnam conflict without them ever having to allude to Vietnam.

The show itself lasted longer than the actual Korean Conflict. How were they dealing with that? The characters noticeably aged. No one ages that much in three years, war or not. And the hairstyles were woefully anachronistic.

[quote]Trapper John MD went on to be a pretty big hit that last for a few seasons.

That had nothing to do with M*A*S*H other than the title

[quote]Alan Alda got an Oscar, Tony and Emmy nomination all in one year in 2005

Which he lost. Only an Oscar is worthy of anything, and only if you get a Best Actor/Actress or Director nod..

If you don't win...Well ask Julia Duffy about that.

R13

M*A*S*H ended in 1983. Linville died in 2000.

The war obviously was making the characters of this show go stark raving mad. They all, with the exception of poor Henry Black and poor Radar, have mental breakdowns and violent outbursts. Hawkeye breaks down THREE times. I heard somewhere that if that happened in real life HE would have been the one to get the Section 8. They're all bitching and moaning and complaining about the horrible, awaful, stinking war. The KOREAN was. I wonder how it would have affected them if it had been the Vietman war? I guess they all would have committed suicide. Suicide is painless indeed.

this was before my time. any gay actors in this?

R66 It's odd, I've watched almost every episode of MASH numerous times and never saw or noticed his hand.

The teddy bear was intended to hide it.

It was deformed somehow…fused fingers or something like that…

R72 David Ogden Stiers was gay.

Yes, r72. David Ogden Stiers came out a few years before he died. He wasn’t out during his MASH years but his character was of the prissy, persnickety variety which were often meant to be gay-coded.

Mike Farrell was the worst actor, for me. I don't think he got one genuine laugh during the entire run of the show.

At first it seemed that Winchester and Hot Lips would have an affair but Ogden Stiers and Swit had no chemistry at all so that idea was abandoned. There were a couple of episodes where Winchester was paired with a woman but he was never believable as a man who liked women. That said the character of Winchester was kind of interesting. At first they made him a straight out villain but in later episodes he showed a kinder, gentler side. But too many of the shows had Charles being fucked over in some way or another and it got tiresome and stupid because he really wasn't that bad and didn't deserve to be treated like shit. Hell, even Frank Burns didn't deserve to be treated the way he was treated. The pranks and practical jokes frequently came off as more juvenile and cruel than funny.

[quote] Mike Farrell was the worst actor, for me. I don't think he got one genuine laugh during the entire run of the show.

No, he wasn't cut out to do comedy. When he first came on the show it seemed like he would be a stabilizing contrast to Hawkeye's nuttiness but he morphed into an even bigger wisecracking, practical joke pulling jackass than Hawkeye. He became one of the most unbearable characters on the show. And he thought he had it worse than anybody else at the 4077 because he had a wife and baby back in the states. Well boo hoo hoo! What a dope.

I'm sad that the Woolsey fire destroyed a good portion of the M*A*S*H set up in Malibu Creek. It was such a dead-ringer for South Korea.

You mean the fire that they quickly incorporated into the finale? Or was there a later one? Maybe they could have kept it like the Universal Studios attraction.

[quote] Mike Farrell was the worst actor

But he was the hottest in that cast of uggos.

Farrell’s idea of ACTING was to quickly thumb pretend tears away.

Larry Linville committed career suicide after leaving MASH because of a long and bitter divorce battle. He turned down some very lucrative opportunities just so his wife wouldn't get half. even the way he left MASH was over the divorce--the producers offered him all kinds of money to come back for a farewell episode, but he turned them down cold so the bitch wouldn't get her cut.

Isn't Jamie Farr a Lesbian?

Which MASH character are you?

I liked the episode where Hot Lips spilled her lousy cup of coffee on Klinger's dress and she had to barter with the only thing she had to get him a new one.

R87 - Wounded soldier from a very special episode: I'm "sensitive", miss mom, good looking and still unmarried.

Loretta Swit was on one of the best Muppet episodes.

The last episode of MASH was a huge ego stroke for Alan Alda. It’s unwatchable now. Hammy and dismissive of the other characters.

The big finale episode was mediocre. The only interesting plot line was Charles and the Korean musicians. It was the most genuinely moving part of the episode, Although I do admit the final scenes of the members of the 4077th all going their separate ways got to me. I just wish Henry and Radar could have been there.

[QUOTE] Loretta Swit was on one of the best Muppet episodes.

Oh honey, no. You're thinking of Miss Piggy.

I've met Alda on several occasions over the past 20 years and the man is a cunt. In person he looks like he's been embalmed.

I met Linville on 2 separate occasions and he couldn't have been nicer.

R33 It didn't make sense--you're right. It was trying to express anti-Vietnam War sentiment but didn't have the guts to do that directly. It used the Korean War as a stand-in, and redirected what should have been anger at policymakers at clichéd military top brass and by-the-book types like Frank and the snob Charles. It was an incoherent mess.

Alan Alda and Mike Farrell raise a toast to the 50th anniversary of M*A*S*H*'s debut:

R17- She was such a FRAU on TNG and DS9.

M*A*S*H makes me sad because it takes me back to being a kid, watching it with my dad.

R33: The early 1970s were still very old fashioned times. Not a question of “guts”. Network tv was always a decade or so behind the real world. The shows that broke through to their time, like the Dick Van Dyke Show or the Mary Tyler Moore show did not deal with real controversy (apart from thenVan Dyke show’s “that’s my boy” episode) and still MTM wasnt permitted to be divorced! Horrible, dated shows like Family Affair and Brady Bunch were very popular.

[quote]David Ogden Stiers was gay.

[quote]David Ogden Stiers was in a few Woody Allen movies.

I remember him best from his appearance on an episode of Frasier. His character was the late Mrs. Crane’s research assistant, he’s so much like Frasier & Niles that Roz & Martin wonder if he’s their real father.

[quote]M*A*S*H makes me sad because it takes me back to being a kid, watching it with my dad.

Same here, R97. It reminds me of being a little kid and an adult watching it with him.

Now this is cute...yes I'm in the right thread.

The timing doesn't work for that, r85. He was divorced in 1975 and didn't quit the show until late 1976. His episodes aired until 1977, and by then he was married again to someone he didn't divorce until 1982.

I think that most of those actors' style and personalities were very much of their era, as well as their performances as dictated by their characters and the show, and so they became kind of permanently associated with and dated by the program's iconic status and success.

Comments like r63's are why I love DL

Fucking shave your heads, you fucking fossils.

[quote]The timing doesn't work for that, [R85]. He was divorced in 1975 and didn't quit the show until late 1976. His episodes aired until 1977, and by then he was married again to someone he didn't divorce until 1982.

I got that from Ken Levine's blog. He was a show runner and writer on MASH. As I recall he mentions it a few times over the years, but here's the latest::

"We wanted to bring Larry back for the first episode of season six to arrange Frank Burns’ departure and were even willing to pay him a lot of money. But Larry was going through a very bitter divorce and didn’t want his ex-wife to get half so he passed. True story."