Retro Bio: Alan Alda: An Unauthorized Biography

for his morality. Bonderoff analyzes the sensitive man; starting in childhood, Alda preferred to spend time more with girls than boys, and while fighting polio he developed a love of reading and writing. He is also a devoted family man. The child of parents who divorced when he was grown, he decided to have more hands-on contact with his children in contrast to the way he was raised. He refused to move his wife and three daughters to live with him in California while he starred in M*A*S*H, so instead, he flew home to New Jersey every weekend. Bonderoff views him as an "anti-star" with a down-to-earth perspective of fame, comfortable living among the middle-class.

The book was published in 1982, a year after the movie Alda wrote, directed and starred in, The Four Seasons, was released, so it focuses on his work at that time. Bonderoff also describes Alda's writing and directing work; he later preferred writing to acting: he wrote The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), a few brief, failed series (We'll Get By, Hickey vs. Anybody, Susan and Sam), and wrote and directed M*A*S*H episodes. He was the only major TV star to win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing.

Besides his personal and professional successes, Alda was extremely popular with the public, gaining high Q ratings and poll numbers among women. He considered himself a feminist and helped campaign to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Bonderoff concludes Alda's appeal partly lies in his image from women's magazines as a faithful husband and a sensitive guy -- and that's somewhat ironically how Bonderoff portrays him.

The book's few faults concern a repetition of topics, for example, Alda's fight for feminism, his common sense lifestyle, and his public appeal. Also, one shouldn't judge a book's cover, but like many unauthorized bios, the front cover photo is unflattering, and this one is especially cheesy. The photo, apparently shot on the M*A*S*H set, shows a dark-haired Alda with his head cocked to his right side, eyes squinting from the sunlight, and a pained grin on his face.

As M*A*S*H fans have suspected, because Hawkeye was a well-defined character, the man who portrayed him is just as substantial, and Alan Alda: An Unauthorized Biography skillfully displays the persona beneath.

This book is out-of-print.

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