Alda

For a new three-part PBS special called "The Human Spark," actor and science lover Alan Alda visits a number of far-flung places -- Germany, a Caribbean island, the home of the Lascaux cave paintings -- in pursuit of just what it is that makes us different from the Earth's other creatures. But his scariest moment came from somewhere closer to home: his own mind. For the program's final chapter, on the human brain, Alda was getting an MRI to get a clearer sense of the way the mind works.

Hollywood hyphenate Alan Alda adds playwriting to his credits with the opening of "Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie," which runs through Dec. 11 at the Geffen Playhouse. Alda, 75, also appears on-screen as a Wall Street swindler in the Eddie Murphy-Ben Stiller caper comedy "Tower Heist. " Tell me about your fascination with Marie Curie. What led me to write a play about her was I realized from reading what a dramatic and important life she led. But what kept me writing about her is how much of a hero she's become to me – a personal hero – because she never let any obstacle stop her, and she had many, many obstacles, as a woman, as a scientist, as a foreigner in the country in which she worked.

As the wise, dryly humorous psychiatrist caring for shellshocked surgeons and troops in the hit television series "MASH," actor Allan Arbus was so convincing that at least one colleague assumed he had expertise in the medical specialty. In 1973, the first season of the long-running CBS show about a mobile Army hospital during the Korean War, series star Alan Alda would often sit with Arbus between takes, questioning him about psychiatric theories. Alda, who played Capt. "Hawkeye" Pierce, said in an interview Tuesday, "He was so authentic in the role it was hard to believe that he wasn't that person.

"Tower Heist" is a modern comic fable about working stiffs (the serving class of a cushy NYC high-rise) stung by Wall Street excesses (the penthouse billionaire, the lost pension fund) trying to stick it to "the man" in some soul-satisfying ways. So a downer that is an upper in an "Upstairs Downstairs" kind of way. But hey, we'll take the laughs where we can get them in these bleak times, right? And with Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy top-lining this high-gloss house of cards, sometimes it works.

Pity the poor Hollywood agent. In the '80s and early '90s, talent agents ruled the industry. Movie studios and television networks found themselves beholden to International Creative Management, the Creative Artists Agency and the time-tested William Morris Agency, the "big three" agencies that had a lock on most A-list stars. Agents made big money for both their clients and themselves, charging the TV networks, for example, huge so-called packaging fees to assemble talent for shows.

Emmy Award-winning actor Harry Morgan, who played the crusty yet sympathetic Col. Sherman T. Potter in the sitcom "MASH" and the hard-nosed LAPD Officer Bill Gannon in the television drama "Dragnet," died Wednesday. He was 96. Morgan died at his home in Brentwood after a bout with pneumonia, his daughter-in-law, Beth Morgan, told the Associated Press. Morgan's eight - year run on "MASH," the pinnacle of his seven-decade acting career, began when he was 60 and had already appeared on the Broadway stage, in dozens of television shows and more than 50 films.

Hollywood hyphenate Alan Alda adds playwriting to his credits with the opening of "Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie," which runs through Dec. 11 at the Geffen Playhouse. Alda, 75, also appears on-screen as a Wall Street swindler in the Eddie Murphy-Ben Stiller caper comedy "Tower Heist. " Tell me about your fascination with Marie Curie. What led me to write a play about her was I realized from reading what a dramatic and important life she led. But what kept me writing about her is how much of a hero she's become to me – a personal hero – because she never let any obstacle stop her, and she had many, many obstacles, as a woman, as a scientist, as a foreigner in the country in which she worked.

Arriving for a Thursday night performance of "Art," Marshall Klieman visibly brightens at the apparition looming outside the James Doolittle Theatre. "Alan Alda, my goodness!" Klieman says. "It's good to see you. Clara, come and say hello to Mr. Alda." Smiling his thin-lipped grin, his azure eyes sparkling beneath their signature sleepy lids, the apparition hugs the couple for a photo-op, during which Clara Klieman gets wise.

Alan Alda just does it. Tennis. Golf. Basketball. Apnea. Apnea? That's what the French call the sport of holding one's breath under water. And Alda does it. For one minute and 45 seconds, which is pretty good after just a little training but doesn't begin to compare with the seven minutes the champion breath-holders can manage. Thanks to science and technology, those times are becoming longer. And that's where Alda comes in, as host of tonight's "Scientific American Frontiers" (10 p.m.

The actor on stage moves with familiar gestures. He speaks with all the same intonations that television and movie audiences have come to know over the years. Alan Alda's style is unmistakable. But the actor on stage is not Alan Alda. It is his half-brother, Antony. Antony is only 33 and has long hair, yet he looks a great deal like his better-known sibling. He moves and talks in remarkably similar fashion to Alan. "What is it, 23 pairs of chromosomes?" Antony says.

SERIES The New Adventures of Old Christine: Christine's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) promising romance with her therapist-boyfriend (Eric McCormack) threatens to be derailed by her old flame (Blair Underwood). Clark Gregg and Hamish Linklater also star (8 p.m. CBS). Mercy: A newlywed cancer patient undergoes a risky course of treatment, and after a man wakes up from 10 years in a coma he decides to confront the woman he loves (8 p.m. NBC). American Idol: Auditions continue in Orlando, Fla., with Kristin Chenoweth as a guest judge (8 p.m. Fox)

For a new three-part PBS special called "The Human Spark," actor and science lover Alan Alda visits a number of far-flung places -- Germany, a Caribbean island, the home of the Lascaux cave paintings -- in pursuit of just what it is that makes us different from the Earth's other creatures. But his scariest moment came from somewhere closer to home: his own mind. For the program's final chapter, on the human brain, Alda was getting an MRI to get a clearer sense of the way the mind works.

What would he write about himself if he just found out he'd died? I wonder. I know it wouldn't be something soft and sentimental. Larry Gelbart could take an event where sentimentality was allowed, even expected, and turn it on its ear. My friend Allan Katz, who also wrote for "MASH," was with him once at a friend's funeral. When Larry realized he had to leave early, he leaned over to Allan and said simply, "I'm sorry to grieve and run." I'm sure he meant no disrespect, or maybe just the right dose of it, depending on the life and times of the recently departed.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed And Other Things I've Learned Alan Alda Random House: 228 pp., $24.95 * ALAN ALDA has enjoyed what most actors must surely envy: longevity and a breadth of work that includes film, television and theater -- most recently, appearing in David Mamet's Broadway revival of "Glengarry Glen Ross." He is best remembered for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the CBS series "M*A*S*H," which ran from 1972 to 1983.

Alan Alda just does it. Tennis. Golf. Basketball. Apnea. Apnea? That's what the French call the sport of holding one's breath under water. And Alda does it. For one minute and 45 seconds, which is pretty good after just a little training but doesn't begin to compare with the seven minutes the champion breath-holders can manage. Thanks to science and technology, those times are becoming longer. And that's where Alda comes in, as host of tonight's "Scientific American Frontiers" (10 p.m.

Alan Alda is a lot like Lucretius. To be fair, Alda, who is currently playing the late physicist Richard Feynman at the Mark Taper Forum, is a lot younger than the ancient Roman sage. Lucretius lived more than 2,000 years ago, and wrote a famous poem that proffers everything from advice for the lovesick to a theory of the universe. His work, "On the Nature of Things," translated mostly obscure Greek thought for a popular Latin audience. Today, we might call him a popularizer of science.

Actor Robert Alda--who scored successes as George Gershwin on film, as Sky Masterson on stage and as "M*A*S*H" star Alan Alda's father in private life--died Saturday at his Los Angeles home after a long illness. He was 72, and friends said he had never entirely recovered from the effects of a stroke he suffered two years ago. "But until he got sick, he was always working," Alda's longtime friend and agent Lew Sherrell said Sunday.

Alan Alda won't be on NBC next fall in a regular series as planned. But Jane Curtin, who wasn't expected to return to series television, will. So will a new, big-budget, prime-time version of "Dark Shadows," the Gothic serial. These were some of the announcements made Thursday by Brandon Tartikoff, president of NBC Entertainment, in a press conference in Los Angeles.

"Physics is like sex," Richard Feynman once said, honing both his philosophic worldview and his pickup lines. "Sure, it has some practical results, but that's not why we do it." You don't hear that one in "QED," Peter Parnell's 1 1/2-person play now in its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum. You hear many others, though.

Alan Alda is perched on the edge of a couch, getting fired up about photons. "A photon, a particle of light, bounces off a mirror and goes to your eye; it's clearly going from the lamp to the mirror to your eye," he says, gesticulating with sweater-clad arms flying, blue eyes flashing with puckish delight, as he pokes at several random points in space, including one perilously close to a reporter's eye.