I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"
Rebecca
Shaeffer (age 21) is murdered at her Los Angeles home by
Robert John Bardo, a mentally unstable man who had been stalking her.
Schaeffer’s death helped lead to the passage in California of legislation
aimed at preventing stalking.
Schaeffer was born November 6, 1967, in Eugene, Oregon. She worked as a teenage
model and had a short stint on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live,
but was best known for co-starring with Pam Dawber in the television sitcom My
Sister Sam. Bardo, born in 1970, had written Schaeffer letters and
unsuccessfully tried to gain access to the set of My Sister Sam, before
showing up at her apartment on July 19, 1989. The obsessed fan had reportedly
obtained the actress’s home address through a detective agency, which located
it through records at the California Department of Motor Vehicles. On the day
of the murder, Schaeffer reportedly complied with Bardo’s request for an
autograph when he appeared at her home and then asked him to leave. He returned
a short time later and the actress, who reportedly was waiting for someone to
deliver a script, answered the door again. Bardo then shot and killed her.
Arrested the next day in Tucson, Arizona, Bardo was later
prosecuted by the Los Angeles County district attorney Marcia Clark, who later
became famous as a prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial. In 1991, Bardo was
convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole. In 1994, California passed the Driver’s Privacy
Protection Act, which prevented the Department of Motor Vehicles from releasing
private addresses.
The 2002 film Moonlight Mile, loosely inspired by Schaeffer’s story,
was written and directed by Brad Silberling, who had been dating the young
actress at the time of her death.
In Los Angeles, California, police surround a home in Compton where the leaders
of the terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) are hiding
out.
The SLA had kidnapped Patricia Hearst, of the fabulously wealthy Hearst
family publishing empire, months earlier, earning headlines across the country.
Police found the house in Compton when a local mother reported that her kids
had seen a bunch of people playing with an arsenal of automatic weapons in the
living room of the home.
The
LAPD's 500-man siege on the Compton home was only the latest event in a short,
but exceedingly bizarre, episode. The SLA was a small group of violent radicals
who quickly made their way to national prominence, far out of proportion to
their actual influence. They began by killing Oakland's superintendent of
schools in late 1973 but really burst into society's consciousness when they
kidnapped Hearst the following February.
Months
later, the SLA released a tape on which Hearst said that she was changing her
name to Tania and joining the SLA. Shortly thereafter, a surveillance camera in
a bank caught Hearst carrying a machine gun during an SLA robbery. In another
incident, SLA member General Teko was caught trying to shoplift from a sporting
goods store, but escaped when Hearst sprayed the front of the building with
machine gun fire.
Although
law enforcement officials began talking about the SLA as if they were a
well-established paramilitary terrorist organization, the SLA had only a
handful of members, most of who were disaffected middle class youths.
On
May 17, Los Angeles police shot an estimated 1,200 rounds of ammunition into
the tiny Compton home as six SLA members shot back. Teargas containers thrown
into the hideout started a fire, but the SLA refused to surrender. Autopsy
results showed that they continued to fire back even as smoke and flames were
searing their lungs; they clearly chose suicide and martyrdom over jail.
Randolph Hearst, Patty's father, remarked that the massive attack had turned
"dingbats into martyrs." The raid left six SLA members dead,
including leader Donald DeFreeze, also known as Cinque. Patty Hearst was not
inside the home at the time. She was not found until September 1975.
Patty
Hearst was put on trial for armed robbery and convicted, despite her claim that
she had been coerced, through repeated rape, isolation, and brainwashing, into
joining the SLA. Prosecutors believed that she actually orchestrated her own
kidnapping because of her prior involvement with one of the SLA members.
Despite any real proof of this theory, she was convicted and sent to prison.
President Carter commuted Hearst's sentence after she had served almost two
years. Hearst was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001.
A video pirate
manages to override the satellite transmission of an HBO movie on this day in
1986. He interrupted the show with a message stating he did not intend to pay
for his HBO service.
April 29, 1961
ABC’s Wide
World of Sports premiered.
Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport... the
thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of athletic
competition... This is ABC's Wide
World of Sports!Wide World of Sports was the creation of Edgar
Scherick through his company, Sports Programs, Inc. After selling his
company to ABC, he hired a youngRoone
Arledge to produce the show.
During its initial season in the spring and summer of 1961, Wide
World of Sports was initially broadcast from 5:00 p.m. to
7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturdays. Beginning in
1962, it was pushed to 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., and later to 4:30 to
6:00 p.m. Eastern Time to allow ABC affiliates in the Eastern and Central
Time Zonesto carry local early-evening newscasts.
In 1964, Wide World of Sports covered the Oklahoma Rattlesnake
Hunt championships; the following year, ABC premiered outdoor program The American Sportsman, which
remained on the network for nearly 20 years.
In 1973, the Superstars was first televised as a segment
on Wide World of Sports; the following year, the Superstars debuted
as a weekly winter series that lasted for 10 years.
In later years, with the rise of cable
television offering more outlets for sports programming, Wide
World of Sports lost many of the events that had been staples of the
program for many years (many, although not all, of them ended up on ESPN, a sister network
to ABC for most of its existence). Ultimately, on January 3, 1998, Jim McKay
announced that Wide World of Sports, in its traditional anthology
series, had been cancelled after a 37-year run. The Wide World of
Sportsname remained in use afterward as an umbrella title for ABC's weekend
sports programming.
In August 2006, ABC Sports came under the oversight of ESPN, under the
relaunched banner name ESPN on ABC. The Wide World of Sports title
continues to occasionally be revived for Saturday afternoon sports programming
on ABC, most recently during the 140th Belmont Stakes as a tribute to Jim
McKay, following his death in June 2008. Most of ABC's sports programming
since Wide World of Sports ended as a program has been
displaced from ABC and moved to ESPN; the cable network began producing its own
anthology series on Saturday afternoons in 2010, ESPN Sports Saturday, which consists of
documentaries originally featured on ESPN's E:60 and 30 for 30 programs,
and a modified version of the ESPN interactive series SportsNation, titled Winners
Bracket.
May 1, 1931
President
Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City's Empire State Building. Less than eight months later, a
television-transmitting antenna had been erected atop the structure (The top
was originally designed as a mooring mast for dirigibles). During the ensuing
36 years, television and FM radio signals have continued to be transmitted from
this location. Today, 22 stations share the site.
May 2, 1941
The Federal Communications
Commission agreed to let regular scheduling of TV broadcasts by commercial TV
stations begin on July 1, 1941. This was the start of network television.
May 2, 1996
Phil Donahue taped the final edition of his talk
show "Donahue." On July 15, 2002, he returned to television with a
talk show under the same name.
May 3, 1991
Prime-time soap opera Dallas airs its last
episode. The episode was watched by
33.3 million viewers (38% of all viewers in that time slot)
The show debuted in April of 1978, and broke ratings
records in 1980 when 83.6 million viewers tuned in to find out "Who Shot
J.R.?". In the final episode, titled Conundrum
(An homage to It's a Wonderful Life)
J.R. is contemplating committing suicide. The drunk J.R. walks around the pool
with a bourbon bottle and a loaded gun, when suddenly another person appears, a
spirit named Adam (portrayed by Joel Grey), whose
"boss" has been watching J.R. and likes him. Adam proceeds to take
him on a journey to show him what life would have been like for other people if
he had not been born. At the end of theepisode Adam encourages J.R. on to kill himself. J.R. will not do it, as
he does not want Adam to be sent back to heaven with his job incomplete. At
this point Adam reveals that he's not an angel, but a minion of Satan. Bobby
has returned home. The gun goes off while Bobby is in the hallway, and he
rushes to J.R.'s room. He looks at what has gone down, gasps, "Oh, my
God," and the series ends on that note with the fate of J.R. never settled
(although it eventually would be five years later, in the reunion movie, Dallas: J.R. Returns.).
In 2010, cable network TNT announced they had ordered
a pilot for the continuation of the Dallas series. After viewing the completed
pilot episode, TNT proceeded to order a full season of 10 episodes.
The new series premiered on June 13, 2012, centering
primarily around John Ross and Christopher Ewing, the now-grown sons of J.R.
and Bobby. Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray returned in full-time
capacity, reprising their original roles. The series is produced by Warner
Horizon Television, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., which holds the rights to the
Dallas franchise through its acquisition of Lorimar Television and is a sister
company to TNT, both under the ownership of TimeWarner.
The new series is a continuation of the old series,
with the story continuing after a 20-year break. It does not take the events of
the TV movies Dallas: J.R. Returns or Dallas: War of the Ewings as canon.
Instead we find the characters as they are today, 20 years after the events of
the Season 14 cliffhanger.[29] In an interview with UltimateDallas.com, Cynthia
Cidre was asked to describe the new Dallas. She responded, "I tried to be
really, really respectful of the original Dallas because it was really clear to
me that the people who love Dallas are [like] Trekkies, really committed to
that show and I really did not understand that before, so I never wanted to
violate anything that had happened in the past. On the other hand that was the
past, twenty years had gone by, so at the same time I think we're properly
balanced between the characters of Bobby Ewing, J.R. and Sue Ellen. I also have
the new cast and it's John Ross and Christopher, the children of Bobby and
J.R., and their love interests. Total respect and a balance of old and
new."
Her first significant success was on the sitcom Car
54, Where Are You? (1961–1963),
in which she played Sylvia Schnauzer, the wife of Officer Leo Schnauzer (played
by Al Lewis). She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her supporting role in the 1975 drama Queen of the Stardust Ballroom. In January 1975, Rae became a cast member on the ABC television comedy Hot L Baltimore, wherein she played Mrs. Bellotti, whose
dysfunctional adult son Moose, who was never actually seen, lived at the
"hot l" (the hotel was so bad the "E" on the sign never
worked). Mrs. Bellotti, who was a bit odd herself, would visit Moose and then
laugh about all the odd situations that Moose would get into with the others
living at the hotel. Rae also appeared in early seasons of Sesame Street as Molly the Mail Lady.
Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life
In 1978, NBC was losing to both CBS and ABC in sitcom
ratings, and Fred Silverman, future producer and former head of CBS, ABC, and NBC, insisted that Norman Lear produce Diff'rent
Strokes. Knowing that Rae was one
of Lear's favorite actresses, he hired her immediately for the role of
housekeeper Edna Garrett, and she
co-starred with Conrad Bain in all 24 episodes of the first season. Her character
proved to be so popular that producers decided to do an episode that could lead
to a spinoff. That episode (called "The Girls School") was about
girls attending a fictional school called Eastland. In July 1979, Rae proposed
the idea for the spinoff. NBC approved the show, to be called The Facts of Life,
which would portray a housemother in a prestigious private school and dealt
with such issues facing teenagers as weight issues, depression, drugs, alcohol,
and dating.
After working as a character actress/comedienne in
supporting roles or in guest shots on television series and specials, The Facts
Of Life gave Rae not only her best-known role but it finally made her a
television star. The role of Edna Garrett was the unifying center of attention
of the program as well as a warm, motherly figure for the girls. Rae's role was
very similar to that of Kate Bradley on the 1960's CBS-TV series Petticoat
Junction, which also gave radio
and television actress Bea Benaderet late stardom.
The Facts of Life had marginal ratings at first but
after a major restructuring and time change, the show became a ratings winner
between 1980 and 1986. Midway throughout both the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons,
she missed several episodes because she was planning on leaving the show, and
the story lines focused more on the other characters. At the beginning of the
eighth season, Rae left the show and Cloris Leachman was then brought in as Mrs. Garrett's sister, Beverly Ann Stickle, for
the show's last two years, until the show was canceled in 1988.
In 2001, Rae, Lisa Whelchel, Mindy Cohn, and Kim Fields were reunited in a TV movie, The
Facts of Life Reunion. In 2007,
the entire cast was invited to attend the TV Land Awards where several members of the cast, including Rae,
sang the show's theme song. On April 19, 2011, the entire cast was reunited
again to attend the TV Land Awards, where the show was nominated and won the
award for Pop Culture Icon. The same day, Nancy McKeon and Kim Fields (who played Jo & Tootie,
respectively) also gave a speech in honor of her 85th birthday. The cast did
likewise on ABC's Good
Morning America, where at the end
of the segment, reporter, Cynthia McFadden wished Rae a happy birthday, and the cast sang the
show's theme song.
April 22, 1976
Barbara
Walters signs $5 million contract.
Barbara Walters signs a record-breaking five-year, $5 million contract with
ABC. The contract made her the first news anchorwoman in network history and
the highest paid TV journalist to date.
April 24, 1936
A group of
firemen responding to an alarm in Camden, New Jersey, is televised.
It was the first time an unplanned event was
broadcast on television, anticipating the development of live TV news coverage.
Fortunately, the event would not inspire anyone to create reality programming.
The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake).
The
quake occurred in the early morning of in the foothills of the San Gabriel
Mountains in southern
California. The unanticipated thrust earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.5 or 6.7 (as determined by several
independent institutions) and had a maximum Mercalli
intensity of XI (Extreme).
The event was one in a series that affected the Los Angeles area in the late
20th century, and a study of the Sierra Madre Fault during that time indicated
that more substantial thrust earthquakes had occurred near the Transverse Ranges in the past. Damage was locally severe in the northernSan Fernando Valley, and surface faulting was extensive to the south of
the epicenter in the mountains, as well as urban settings along city streets
and neighborhoods. Uplift and other effects affected private homes and
businesses.
February 10, 2006
Final episode of Arrested Development airs on Fox.
Celebrated by critics and beloved by its relatively
small but devout fan base, the Fox television series Arrested Development airs
its last episode on this day in 2006. Arrested Development, created by
Mitchell Hurwitz, premiered in November 2003. It was almost universally
acclaimed by critics, who praised its sharp, complicated writing and stellar
acting, as well as the multi-layered plotlines and interesting camera work that
set it apart from run-of-the-mill network sitcoms.
Arrested Development was narrated by Ron Howard, the former Happy
Days star-turned-Oscar-winning movie director (2001’s A Beautiful Mind),
in an uncredited performance. Jason Bateman starred as Michael Bluth, by far
the most responsible member of a madcap family whose patriarch, George Bluth
Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), has been sent to jail for dubious accounting procedures.
With George Sr. in prison, Michael is forced to take over management of the
Bluth Company and provide a much-needed stabilizing force for the rest of the
Bluth clan: his manipulative mother (Jessica Walter); his magician older
brother (Will Arnett); his self-obsessed sister (Portia de Rossi) and her
aspiring actor husband (David Cross); and his child-like youngest brother (Tony
Hale), who still clings to the hem of his mother’s fur coat. Rounding out the
comedy, Michael’s sensitive son (Michael Cera) harbors a crush on his cousin
(Alia Shawkat), with whom he is forced to share a room after the clan starts
sharing a model home on one of the Bluth Company’s developments.
At the 2004 Emmy Awards, Arrested Development won no fewer than four
statuettes-- for directing, writing, casting and for Outstanding Comedy Series.
Bateman also won a Golden Globe Award in 2005 for Best Actor in a Television
Series--Musical or Comedy. Despite critics’ rapture and the enthusiasm of its
fan base, the series earned low ratings from the beginning. While Fox renewed Arrested
Development for a second season, it shortened its run to only 18
episodes--a fact that was worked into the jokes on the show, along with jokes
about its corporate sponsor, Burger King, and jokes about its much higher-rated
Sunday-night competition (ABC’s Desperate Housewives). A few of the
memorable guest stars during the show’s three-year run included Liza Minnelli,
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Henry Winkler, Scott Baio and Charlize Theron.
During its third season, Arrested Development’s audience averaged
around 4 million viewers, compared with 6 million during the previous season.
With the threat of cancellation hovering, rumors flew that Arrested
Development might be picked up by HBO or Showtime--either of which might
have been a better fit for its offbeat, often racy humor. References to these
rumors were also worked into the script.
In February 2006, to the dismay of fans, Fox pulled the plug on Arrested
Development for good. The following month, it was reported that Hurwitz had
closed long-running negotiations with Showtime and determined that Arrested
Development as a TV series was over. With the program named as one of the
100 Best Shows of All Time by Time magazine, buzz began to grow about an
Arrested Development movie--exciting news for the show’s loyal fans.
Nielsen appeared in over 100 films and 1,500
television programs over the span of his career beginning with dramatic roles
on television appearing in almost 50 live programs in 1950 alone during what is
now known as "The Golden Age".
Although Nielsen's acting career crossed a variety of genres in both television
and films, his deadpan delivery as a doctor in Airplane! (1980) marked a turning point in his career, one that
would make him, in the words of film critic Roger Ebert,
"the Olivier of spoofs." Nielsen enjoyed further success with
The Naked Gun film series,
based on his short-lived television series Police Squad!.
His portrayal of serious characters seemingly oblivious to (and complicit in)
their absurd surroundings gave him a reputation as a comedian. He was
recognized with a variety of awards throughout his career and was inducted into
both the Canada and Hollywood Walk of Fame. Nielsen married four times and had
two daughters from his second marriage. Nielsen died in his sleep in a Fort Lauderdale, Florida
hospital of complications from pneumonia.
John
Logie Baird gave the world's first
demonstration of true television before 50 scientists in an attic room in
central London.
In 1927, his television was demonstrated over
438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow, and he formed the Baird
Television Development Company. (BTDC). In 1928, the BTDC achieved the first
transatlantic television transmission between London and New York and the first
transmission to a ship in mid-Atlantic. He also gave the first demonstration of
both colour and stereoscopic television.
January 27, 1976
The Happy Days spin-off Laverne and Shirley, featuring two
Milwaukee women who work on a brewery assembly line preimers.
The show starred Penny Marshall, sister of producer
Garry Marshall, and Cindy Williams. Fierce rivalry erupted between the two
stars, and Williams left the show in 1982. The show lasted only one more season
before its cancellation in 1983.
Alda was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo in The Bronx,
New York City. His father, Robert Alda
(born Alphonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D'Abruzzo), was an actor and singer,
and his mother, Joan Browne, was a former showgirl. His father was of Italian
descent and his mother was of Irish
ancestry. His adopted surname, "Alda," is a portmanteau
of ALphonso and D'Abruzzo. When Alda was seven years old, he
contracted poliomyelitis. To combat the disease, his parents administered a
painful treatment regimen developed by Sister Elizabeth Kenny that consisted of applying hot woollen blankets to
his limbs and stretching his muscles. Alda attended Archbishop Stepinac High
School in White Plains, New York. In 1956, he received his Bachelor of
Science degree in English from Fordham College of Fordham University in the Bronx, where he was a student staff member of
its FM radio station, WFUV. Alda's half-brother, Antony Alda,
was born the same year and would also become an actor.
During Alda's junior year, he studied in Paris, acted in a play in Rome, and performed with his
father on television in Amsterdam. In college, he was a member of the ROTC, and after graduation, he served for a year at Fort
Benning, Georgia, then joined the U.S. Army
Reserve, and served for six months as
a gunnery officer.
A year after graduation, he married Arlene Weiss,
with whom he has three daughters: Eve, Elizabeth,
and Beatrice. Two of his 7 grandchildren are aspiring actors. The
Aldas have been longtime residents of Leonia, New Jersey. Alda frequented Sol & Sol Deli on Palisade
Avenue in the nearby town of Englewood, New
Jersey—a fact mirrored in his
character's daydream about eating whitefish from the establishment, in an
episode of M*A*S*H in which Hawkeye sustains a head injury.
Career
Early acting
Alda began his career in the 1950s, as a member of the
Compass Players comedy revue. In 1966, he starred in the musical The Apple Tree on Broadway; he was nominated for the Tony Award
as Best Actor in a Musical for that role.
Alda made his Hollywood acting debut as a supporting
player in Gone are the Days! – a film version of the highly successful
Broadway play Purlie Victorious, which co-starred veteran actors Ruby Dee and
her husband, Ossie Davis. Other film roles would follow, such as his portrayal
of author, humorist, and actor George Plimpton
in the film Paper Lion (1968),[4] as
well as The
Extraordinary Seaman (1969), and
the occult-murder-suspense thriller The
Mephisto Waltz, with actress Jacqueline Bisset. During this time, Alda frequently appeared as a panelist on the 1968
revival of What's My Line?. He also appeared as a panelist on I've Got a Secret during its 1972 syndication revival.
M*A*S*H Series (1972–83)
In early 1972, Alda auditioned for and was selected to
play the role of "Hawkeye Pierce" in the TV adaptation of the 1970
film MASH.[4] He
was nominated for 21 Emmy Awards, and won five. He took part in writing 19 episodes,
including the finale, and directed 32. When he won his first Emmy Award for
writing, he was so happy that he performed a cartwheel before running up to the stage to accept the award.
He was also the first person to win Emmy Awards for acting, writing, and
directing for the same series. Richard Hooker, who wrote the novel on which M*A*S*H was
based, did not like Alda's portrayal of Hawkeye Pierce (Hooker, a Republican, had based Hawkeye on himself, whereas Alda and the
show's writers took the character in a more liberal
direction).[citation
needed] Alda also directed the show's 1983 2½-hour series
finale "Goodbye,
Farewell and Amen", which
remains the
single most-watched episode of any
television series.[4]
Alda is the only series regular to appear in all 251 episodes.
Alda commuted from Los Angeles to his home in New
Jersey every weekend for 11 years while starring in M*A*S*H. His wife
and daughters lived in New Jersey, and he did not want to uproot his family to
L.A., especially because he did not know how long the show would last.
Alan Alda, father Robert Alda, and half-brother Antony
Alda appeared together in an episode of M*A*S*H, "Lend a
Hand", during Season 8. Robert had previously appeared in "The
Consultant" in Season 3.
During the first five seasons of the series, the tone
of "M*A*S*H" was largely that of a traditional "service
comedy", in the vein of shows like "McHale's Navy".
However, as the original writers gradually left the series, Alda gained
increasing control, and by the final seasons had become a producer and creative
consultant. Under his watch, M*A*S*H retained its comedic foundation,
but gradually assumed a somewhat more serious tone, openly addressing political
issues. As a result, the 11 years of M*A*S*H are generally split into
two eras: the Larry Gelbart/Gene Reynolds
"comedy" years (1972–1977), and the Alan Alda "dramatic"
years (1977–1983).
In his 1981 autobiography, Jackie Cooper
(who directed several early episodes) wrote that Alda concealed a lot of
hostility beneath the surface, and that the two of them barely spoke to each
other by the time Cooper’s directing of M*A*S*H ended.
During his M*A*S*H years, Alda made several
game-show appearances, most notably in The $10,000
Pyramid and as a frequent
panelist on To Tell the Truth.
His favorite episodes of M*A*S*H are "Dear
Sigmund" and "In Love and War".
In 1996, Alda was ranked #41 on TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time".
Writing and Directing
Credits
The following is a list of M*A*S*H episodes
written and/or directed by Alda.
Season One
Episode 19: "The Long John Flap" (Written)
Season Two
Episode 5: "Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde" (Written with
Robert Klane)
Episode 23: "Mail Call" (Directed)
Season Three
Episode 16: "Bulletin Board" (Directed)
Season Four
Episode 4: "The Late Captain Pierce" (Directed)
Episode 7: "Dear Mildred" (Directed)
Episode 8: "The Kids" (Directed)
Episode 16: "Dear Ma" (Directed)
Season Five
Episode 2: "Margaret's Engagement" (Directed)
Episode 7: "Dear Sigmund (Written and Directed)
Episode 12: "Exorcism" (Directed)
Episode 19: "Hepatitis" (Written and Directed)
Season Six
Episode 2: "Fallen Idol" (Written and Directed)
Episode 4: "War of Nerves" (Written and Directed)
Episode 7: "In Love and War" (Written and Directed)
Episode 12: "Comrades in Arms, Part 1" (Written;
Directed with Burt Metcalfe)
Episode 13: "Comrades in Arms, Part 2" (Written;
Directed with Burt Metcalfe)
Season Seven
Episode 5: "The Billfold Syndrome" (Directed)
Episode 8: "Major Ego" (Directed)
Episode 14: "Dear Sis" (Written and Directed)
Episode 16: "Inga" (Written and Directed)
Episode 25: "The Party" (Written with Burt Metcalfe)
Season Eight
Episode
3: "Guerilla My Dreams" (Directed)
Episode
11: "Life Time" (Written with Walter D. Dishell, M.D.; Directed)
Episode
15: "Yessir, That's Our Baby" (Directed)
Episode
20: "Lend a Hand" (Written and Directed)
Episode
22: "Dreams" (Teleplay; Story with James Jay Rubinfier;
Directed)
Season Nine
Episode 4: "Father's Day" (Directed)
Episode 12: "Depressing News" (Directed)
Episode 15: "Bottoms Up" (Directed)
Episode 20: "The Life You Save" (Written with John
Rappaport; Directed)
Season Ten
Episode
6: "Communication Breakdown" (Directed)
Episode
10: "Follies of the Living—Concerns of the Dead" (Written and
Directed)
Episode
16: "Where There's a Will, There's a War" (Directed)
Season Eleven
Episode 1: "Hey, Look Me Over" (Written with Karen Hall)
Episode 16: "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" (Written with
Burt Metcalfe, John Rappaport, Dan Wilcox, Thad Mumford, Elias Davis,
David Pollock and Karen Hall; Directed)
During M*A*S*H's run and continuing through the
1980s, Alda embarked on a successful career as a writer and director, with the
ensemble dramedyThe Four
Seasons being perhaps his most
notable hit. Betsy's Wedding is his last directing credit to date. After M*A*S*H,
Alda took on a series of roles that either parodied or directly contradicted
his "nice guy" image.[4]
His role as a pompous celebrity television producer in Crimes and
Misdemeanors was widely seen as a
self-parody, although Alda has denied this.
In 1993, he co-starred with Woody Allen
(also the director), Diane Keaton, and Anjelica Huston
in the comedy/mystery Manhattan
Murder Mystery. The four play a
quartet of amateur crime solvers who become entangled in a murder plot possibly
perpetrated by Keaton and Allen's neighbor. Alda's character is Ted, a
playwright secretly in love with Keaton's character Carol, but who eventually
falls for Huston's character Marcia.
Beginning in 2004, Alda was a regular cast member on
the NBC program The West Wing, portraying RepublicanU.S. Senator and presidential candidate Arnold Vinick,
until the show's conclusion in May 2006. He made his premiere in the sixth
season's eighth episode, "In The Room," and was added to the opening
credits with the thirteenth episode, "King Corn." In August 2006,
Alda won an Emmy for his portrayal of Arnold Vinick in the final
season of The West Wing. Alda had been a serious candidate, along with Sidney Poitier
for the role of President Josiah Bartlet, before Martin Sheen
was ultimately cast in the role.
Alda starred in the original Broadway production of
the play 'Art',
which opened on March 1, 1998, at the Bernard B.
Jacobs Theatre. The play won the Tony
Award for best original play.
Alda also had a part in the 2000 romantic comedy What Women Want, as the CEO of the advertising firm where the main characters worked.
In the spring of 2005, Alda starred as Shelly Levene
in the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of David Mamet'sGlengarry Glen
Ross, for which he received a Tony Award
nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play. Throughout 2009 and 2010, he
appeared in three episodes of 30 Rock
as Milton Greene, the biological father of Jack Donaghy
(Alec Baldwin).
In 2011, Alda was scheduled to guest star on Law & Order: LA, portraying former police and naval officer John
Winters, the father of the former main character Rex Winters. It is unknown
whether he filmed his role before the series was redesigned and Rex Winters
written off.
After the release of the movie Tower Heist,
Alda was devastated when on December 7, 2011, he lost his idol and decades-long
friend Harry Morgan, who played opposite Alda as Colonel
Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H.
Upon Morgan's death, Alda released a statement: "We had just a wonderful
time reminiscing. That was the last time I saw Harry."
Charitable work and
other interests
Alda has done extensive charity work. He helped
narrate a 2005 St.
Jude's Children's Hospital produced
one-hour special TV show Fighting for Life.[15]
He and his wife, Arlene, are also close friends of Marlo Thomas,
who is very active in fund-raising for the hospital her father
founded. The special featured Ben Bowen as
one of six patients being treated for childhood cancer at Saint Jude. Alda and
Marlo Thomas had also worked together in the early 70s on a critically
acclaimed children's album entitled Free to Be You
and Me, which featured Alda,
Thomas and a number of other well-known character actors. This project remains
one of the earliest public signs of his support of women's rights.
In 2005, Alda published his first round of memoirs, Never
Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned. Among other stories,
he recalls his intestines becoming strangulated while on location in Chile for his PBS show Scientific
American Frontiers, during which
he mildly surprised a young doctor with his understanding of medical
procedures, which he had learned from M*A*S*H. He also talks about his
mother's battle with schizophrenia. The title comes from an incident in his childhood,
when Alda was distraught about his dog dying and his well-meaning father had
the animal stuffed. Alda was horrified by the results, and took from
this that sometimes we have to accept things as they are, rather than
desperately and fruitlessly trying to change them.
In 2006, Alda contributed his voice to a part in the
audio book of Max Brooks' World War Z.
In this book, he voiced Arthur Sinclair Jr., the director of the United States
Government's fictional "Department of Strategic Resources (DeStRes)".
His second memoir, Things I Overheard While Talking
to Myself, weaves together advice from public speeches he has given with
personal recollections about his life and beliefs.
Alda also has an avid interest in cosmology,
and participated in BBC coverage of the opening of the Large Hadron
Collider, at CERN, Geneva, in September
2008.
In Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself,
Alda describes how as a teen he was raised as a Roman Catholic and eventually
he realized he had begun thinking like an agnostic or atheist:
For a while in my teens, I was sure I had it. It was
about getting to heaven. If heaven existed and lasted forever, then a mere
lifetime spent scrupulously following orders was a small investment for an
infinite payoff. One day, though, I realized I was no longer a believer, and
realizing that, I couldn’t go back. Not that I lost the urge to pray.
Occasionally, even after I stopped believing, I might send off a quick memo to
the Master of the Universe, usually on a matter needing urgent attention, like Oh,
God, don’t let us crash. These were automatic expulsions of words, brief SOS
messages from the base of my brain. They were similar to the short prayers that
were admired by the church in my Catholic boyhood, which they called
“ejaculations.” I always liked the idea that you could shorten your time in
purgatory with each ejaculation; what boy wouldn’t find that a comforting idea?
But my effort to keep the plane in the air by talking to God didn’t mean I
suddenly was overcome with belief, only that I was scared. Whether I’d wake up
in heaven someday or not, whatever meaning I found would have to occur first on
this end of eternity.
Speaking further on agnosticism, Alda goes on to say:
I still don't like the word agnostic. It's too fancy.
I'm simply not a believer. But, as simple as this notion is, it confuses some
people. Someone wrote a Wikipedia entry about me, identifying me as an
atheist because I'd said in a book I wrote that I wasn't a believer. I guess in
a world uncomfortable with uncertainty, an unbeliever must be an atheist, and
possibly an infidel. This gets us back to that most pressing of human
questions: why do people worry so much about other people's holding beliefs
other than their own?
Alda made these comments in an interview for the 2008
question section of the Edge Foundation website.
January 28, 1956
Young country-rock singer Elvis Presley makes his
first-ever television appearance on the TV musical-variety program Stage
Show.
Presley
sang "Heartbreak Hotel," which quickly became a hit single. In total,
Elvis appeared on six shows. The program was hosted by swing band leaders Tommy
and Jimmy Dorsey. Elvis went on to appear on Ed Sullivan's immensely popular
variety show, Toast of the Town, in the fall of 1956. The appearance
made Elvis a household name.
January 28, 1986
Challenger explodes
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred
on January 28, 1986, when the NASASpace Shuttle
orbiterChallenger (OV-099) (mission STS-51-L)
broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew
members, which included five NASA astronauts and
two Payload Specialists. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean,
off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at
11:39 EST (16:39 UTC). Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal
in its right solid
rocket booster (SRB) failed at
liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed,
allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach
the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment
hardware and external
fuel tank. This led to the separation
of the right-hand SRB's aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank.Aerodynamic forces
broke up the orbiter.
January 28, 1996
Jerry Siegel, creator of Superman, dies at age 81.
Writer Sisgel created Superman with artist friend Joe
Shuster when they were both teenagers in the 1930s. All the major newspaper
syndicates rejected the character, who was born on the doomed planet Krypton
and bundled off by his parents in a space capsule to Smallville USA, where he's
raised by kindly earthlings. In 1938, however, Seigel and Shuster finally
landed a comic book deal, and Superman's adventures as mild-mannered reporter
Clark Kent moonlighting as the Man of Steel became an instant hit. The comic
book spawned a newspaper strip that ran for 28 years, as well as a radio series
that ran from 1940 to 1951.
The character, along
with his friends cub reporter Jimmy Olson and ace newswoman Lois Lane, who
never seem to penetrate Superman's Clark Kent disguise, appeared in movie
serials from 1948 to 1950, and in a feature film in 1951. A popular Superman TV
series ran from 1951 to 1957. Filmed on a shoestring budget, the show's special
effects were limited to Superman crashing through walls, flying around, and
witnessing fiery explosions. The same flying sequences were used repeatedly.
Actor George Reeves was so well-known as Superman that he couldn't find other
work when the series ended.
The
Man of Steel reappeared on the big screen in 1978, with Christopher Reeves in
the role. The hit film launched three follow-ups. In 1993, Superman appeared
again in the TV comedy Lois and Clark.
February 1, 1951
TV Shows Atomic Blast, Live.
For the first time,
television viewers witness the live detonation of an atomic bomb blast, as KTLA
in Los Angeles broadcasts the blinding light produced by a nuclear device
dropped on Frenchman Flats, Nevada. One of a hundred above-ground nuclear tests conducted between 1951 and 1962 in
the Nevada desert, the A-bomb telecast found its way into the history books
(and blogs) when cameramen secretly positioned on top of a Las Vegas hotel
focused on the blast. The images were relayed to the station’s transmitter on
Mount Wilson Observatory about 200 miles away, and early-bird viewers saw their
television screens fill with white light at 5:30 in the morning.
Witnessing the blast telecast first-hand was KTLA reporter Stan Chambers.
In a YouTube interview, Chambers described how station manager Klaus
Landsberg pulled off the unauthorized broadcast. “We couldn’t get near the
field, because it was all top secret. Klaus sent a crew to Las Vegas and put
them on top of one of the hotels…. They kept the camera open for the flash of
light that would come on when the blast went off.”
Los Angeles viewers tuned in for the one-off event. “We had a rating that
was very large for 5:30 in the morning,” Chambers recalled. In the
pre-videotape era, there were of course no replays as newsmen Gil Martin,
anchoring from Las Vegas, and station staffer Robin Lane at Mount Wilson
reported the incident. Chambers continued:
We stayed on the air, they waited for the right time, and all of a sudden
there was the flash. The people watched it, Gil described it, Lane talked about
it, and that was our telecast. That one flash. You just see this blinding white
light. It didn’t seem real. We didn’t have videotape. You couldn’t say, “Let’s
look at it again.”
1951’s Ranger Easy bomb was designed to test compression against critical
mass in the Demon core,
so-called because the plutonium mass became unstable and caused the
radiation-poisoning death of a Los Alamos scientist. A B-50 bomber plane
dropped the test weapon above the Nevada Test Site about 65 miles northwest of
Las Vegas. Part of the Department of Energy’s Operation Ranger
program, “Easy” delivered a 1-kiloton payload.
In the decade that followed Operation Ranger, A-bomb tests from
Buster-Jangle, Tumbler-Snapper, Upshot-Knothole, Plumbbob, Nougat, Sunbeam and
other programs became so commonplace that watching mushroom clouds turned into
a Las Vegas tourist attraction.
In 1952, KTLA set up the first live, national feed for a Nevada atomic bomb
explosion. That one was carried by the major networks.
February 1, 1976
Sonny and Cher resumed on TV despite a real life
divorce.
In February 1976, the
bitterness of their divorce behind them, the couple reunited for one last try
with The Sonny and Cher Show. This incarnation of the series was produced by
veteran musical variety-show writers, Frank Peppiatt and John Aylesworth.
It was basically the same as their first variety series but with different
writers to create new sketches and songs. The duo's opening conversations were
markedly more subdued and made humbled references to the couple's divorce and
Cher's subsequent marriage to Gregg Allman (during
production Cher was pregnant with and eventually bore Allman's son, Elijah). (Some jokes would get awkward. In one opening
segment Cher gave Sonny a compliment and Sonny jokingly replied "That's
not what you said in the courtroom.") Despite these complications, the
revived series garnered enough ratings to be renewed for a second season,
finally ending its run in 1977. (By this time, the variety show genre
was already in steep decline, and Sonny and Cher was one of the few successful
programs of the genre remaining on the air at the time.)
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