hypomanic Alan Alda treats depressive comedowns with Zoloft .........clutz

[Guest guest]

Lynn Barber reviews Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?

xml=/arts/2006/02/05/boald05.xml & sSheet=/arts/2006/02/05/bomain.html

The irritating title comes from the fact that, as a boy, Alan Alda

was so upset when his dog died that his parents had the animal

stuffed. Unfortunately the taxidermist gave the dog a terrifying

snarl, which meant people backed out of the room at the sight of it.

From this, Alda concludes that we should not try to preserve the

past - a slightly odd premise for an autobiography, but then this is

a slightly odd book.

British audiences probably know Alda best as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H, but

in America he has had more recent fame as a theatre actor and

television science presenter. In fact, he has won dozens of awards,

which I only learnt from a website - he doesn't mention them in his

book.

He was born into showbiz 70 years ago, not quite in a trunk but

getting on that way. His father, Alda, worked in burlesque as

what was known as " the tit singer " - he sang at the side of the

stage while chorus girls danced and stripped. Alan Alda made his

stage debut when he was six months old and posed for publicity

photographs, aged two, smoking a pipe. " It was a world, " he

recalls, " of coarse jokes and laughter late into the night, a world

of gambling and drinking and the frequent sight of the buttocks,

thighs, and breasts of naked women. "

But all this changed when he was seven and his father was signed by

Warner Bros as a leading man. The family moved to Los Angeles and

settled in a remote canyon in the mountains. Alda, an only child,

was educated at home by tutors and hardly ever saw other children.

When he finally started school at 11, he was the immediate target of

bullies. The reason, he explains, was that he had grown up thinking

of non-showbiz people as " civilians " and believing that the only way

to relate to them was by performing. So as soon as he got to school

he thought, " Wow, look at the size of that audience! " and jumped on

a table and started doing impersonations and tap dancing. " For some

reason that I didn't understand, this made kids want to hit me. "

His other problem was that his mother was mad - he saw her try to

stab his father when he was six and was a frequent witness to her

alcoholism and paranoia. But the subject wasn't even discussed until

she ran through a hotel naked, when he was 18, and was consigned to

a mental hospital.

Obviously, this left its scars, and Alda writes: " Even when I was

into my forties and fifties, she could still enrage me with an

irrational accusation. It wasn't so much that I was impatient with

her madness. I could understand that. What I resented her for was

not being a mother. "

His father had hoped he would become a doctor, but Alda was always

determined to be an actor. His early career was difficult, and made

more so by the fact that he married at 22 and had three daughters in

quick succession, so he had five mouths to feed on very little

income. But he persisted, and by the time he was 30 he could afford

a house in New Jersey, where he happily flung himself into suburban

life.

In 1972 he started doing M*A*S*H, which lasted for 11 years - its

final episode was watched by 125 million viewers. The experience

stood him in good stead when he recently suffered an intestinal

blockage in Chile and the surgeon started describing the operation

he intended to do. Alda interrupted: " Oh, you're going to do an end-

to-end anastomosis… I did many of them on M*A*S*H. "

Mike Nichols once told Alda, " You're insane " , and one can see what

he meant. He mentions " hypomanic " episodes, followed by depressive

comedowns which he treats with Zoloft. Nichols's remark arose

because he was directing Alda in a play and felt that he was

unconvincing in a scene where he had to recall something. So he told

Alda to recall what he was thinking when he got out of his car that

morning. Alda told him that was easy: he was thinking about whether

to take his jacket with him or not. On the one hand, it was too warm

to need a jacket but on the other hand, he had brought it all the

way from home so it seemed pointless to leave it in the car. So then

he was thinking, " What should I do in the future? Is there a good

jacket policy I can derive from this? " , and at this point Nichols

told him he was insane.

He tends to over-think, over-theorise. Faced with the problem of

learning Spanish when he was stuck in hospital in Chile, he didn't

just learn a few key phrases but started " drawing diagrams for a

revolutionary new language system that would enable anyone to learn

any language in a week. My old pattern was intact. I don't just get

flooded with ideas, I get flooded with systems. "

He is also much given to wild enthusiasms. As a boy, he was so keen

on Roman Catholicism that he took communion every day, until he

suddenly decided he could not believe in transubstantiation and

stopped entirely. As an out-of-work actor, he decided to make money

on the horses and headed for the library to research betting

systems. He chose the old gale, doubling the bet every time he

lost - amazingly, he came out on top and only stopped when he was

too busy acting to keep betting.

But when he was nominated for an last year, for his part in

The Aviator, he studied the betting form intensely and concluded

(correctly) that he would lose to Freeman.

His current obsession is science and playing with his seven

grandchildren - " making toys out of cardboard boxes, teaching them

magic tricks, making robots, figuring out how to drop an egg two

storeys without breaking it [suspend it on rubber bands in a box] " .

He must be exhausting company. He credits his wife, Arlene, with

teaching him " to live in a world that has actual people in it and

not just a string of audiences " , but even so you feel he has not

quite got the hang of normal life.

[Guest guest]

Lynn Barber reviews Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?

xml=/arts/2006/02/05/boald05.xml & sSheet=/arts/2006/02/05/bomain.html

The irritating title comes from the fact that, as a boy, Alan Alda

was so upset when his dog died that his parents had the animal

stuffed. Unfortunately the taxidermist gave the dog a terrifying

snarl, which meant people backed out of the room at the sight of it.

From this, Alda concludes that we should not try to preserve the

past - a slightly odd premise for an autobiography, but then this is

a slightly odd book.

British audiences probably know Alda best as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H, but

in America he has had more recent fame as a theatre actor and

television science presenter. In fact, he has won dozens of awards,

which I only learnt from a website - he doesn't mention them in his

book.

He was born into showbiz 70 years ago, not quite in a trunk but

getting on that way. His father, Alda, worked in burlesque as

what was known as " the tit singer " - he sang at the side of the

stage while chorus girls danced and stripped. Alan Alda made his

stage debut when he was six months old and posed for publicity

photographs, aged two, smoking a pipe. " It was a world, " he

recalls, " of coarse jokes and laughter late into the night, a world

of gambling and drinking and the frequent sight of the buttocks,

thighs, and breasts of naked women. "

But all this changed when he was seven and his father was signed by

Warner Bros as a leading man. The family moved to Los Angeles and

settled in a remote canyon in the mountains. Alda, an only child,

was educated at home by tutors and hardly ever saw other children.

When he finally started school at 11, he was the immediate target of

bullies. The reason, he explains, was that he had grown up thinking

of non-showbiz people as " civilians " and believing that the only way

to relate to them was by performing. So as soon as he got to school

he thought, " Wow, look at the size of that audience! " and jumped on

a table and started doing impersonations and tap dancing. " For some

reason that I didn't understand, this made kids want to hit me. "

His other problem was that his mother was mad - he saw her try to

stab his father when he was six and was a frequent witness to her

alcoholism and paranoia. But the subject wasn't even discussed until

she ran through a hotel naked, when he was 18, and was consigned to

a mental hospital.

Obviously, this left its scars, and Alda writes: " Even when I was

into my forties and fifties, she could still enrage me with an

irrational accusation. It wasn't so much that I was impatient with

her madness. I could understand that. What I resented her for was

not being a mother. "

His father had hoped he would become a doctor, but Alda was always

determined to be an actor. His early career was difficult, and made

more so by the fact that he married at 22 and had three daughters in

quick succession, so he had five mouths to feed on very little

income. But he persisted, and by the time he was 30 he could afford

a house in New Jersey, where he happily flung himself into suburban

life.

In 1972 he started doing M*A*S*H, which lasted for 11 years - its

final episode was watched by 125 million viewers. The experience

stood him in good stead when he recently suffered an intestinal

blockage in Chile and the surgeon started describing the operation

he intended to do. Alda interrupted: " Oh, you're going to do an end-

to-end anastomosis… I did many of them on M*A*S*H. "

Mike Nichols once told Alda, " You're insane " , and one can see what

he meant. He mentions " hypomanic " episodes, followed by depressive

comedowns which he treats with Zoloft. Nichols's remark arose

because he was directing Alda in a play and felt that he was

unconvincing in a scene where he had to recall something. So he told

Alda to recall what he was thinking when he got out of his car that

morning. Alda told him that was easy: he was thinking about whether

to take his jacket with him or not. On the one hand, it was too warm

to need a jacket but on the other hand, he had brought it all the

way from home so it seemed pointless to leave it in the car. So then

he was thinking, " What should I do in the future? Is there a good

jacket policy I can derive from this? " , and at this point Nichols

told him he was insane.

He tends to over-think, over-theorise. Faced with the problem of

learning Spanish when he was stuck in hospital in Chile, he didn't

just learn a few key phrases but started " drawing diagrams for a

revolutionary new language system that would enable anyone to learn

any language in a week. My old pattern was intact. I don't just get

flooded with ideas, I get flooded with systems. "

He is also much given to wild enthusiasms. As a boy, he was so keen

on Roman Catholicism that he took communion every day, until he

suddenly decided he could not believe in transubstantiation and

stopped entirely. As an out-of-work actor, he decided to make money

on the horses and headed for the library to research betting

systems. He chose the old gale, doubling the bet every time he

lost - amazingly, he came out on top and only stopped when he was

too busy acting to keep betting.

But when he was nominated for an last year, for his part in

The Aviator, he studied the betting form intensely and concluded

(correctly) that he would lose to Freeman.

His current obsession is science and playing with his seven

grandchildren - " making toys out of cardboard boxes, teaching them

magic tricks, making robots, figuring out how to drop an egg two

storeys without breaking it [suspend it on rubber bands in a box] " .

He must be exhausting company. He credits his wife, Arlene, with

teaching him " to live in a world that has actual people in it and

not just a string of audiences " , but even so you feel he has not

quite got the hang of normal life.

[Guest guest]

Lynn Barber reviews Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?

xml=/arts/2006/02/05/boald05.xml & sSheet=/arts/2006/02/05/bomain.html

The irritating title comes from the fact that, as a boy, Alan Alda

was so upset when his dog died that his parents had the animal

stuffed. Unfortunately the taxidermist gave the dog a terrifying

snarl, which meant people backed out of the room at the sight of it.

From this, Alda concludes that we should not try to preserve the

past - a slightly odd premise for an autobiography, but then this is

a slightly odd book.

British audiences probably know Alda best as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H, but

in America he has had more recent fame as a theatre actor and

television science presenter. In fact, he has won dozens of awards,

which I only learnt from a website - he doesn't mention them in his

book.

He was born into showbiz 70 years ago, not quite in a trunk but

getting on that way. His father, Alda, worked in burlesque as

what was known as " the tit singer " - he sang at the side of the

stage while chorus girls danced and stripped. Alan Alda made his

stage debut when he was six months old and posed for publicity

photographs, aged two, smoking a pipe. " It was a world, " he

recalls, " of coarse jokes and laughter late into the night, a world

of gambling and drinking and the frequent sight of the buttocks,

thighs, and breasts of naked women. "

But all this changed when he was seven and his father was signed by

Warner Bros as a leading man. The family moved to Los Angeles and

settled in a remote canyon in the mountains. Alda, an only child,

was educated at home by tutors and hardly ever saw other children.

When he finally started school at 11, he was the immediate target of

bullies. The reason, he explains, was that he had grown up thinking

of non-showbiz people as " civilians " and believing that the only way

to relate to them was by performing. So as soon as he got to school

he thought, " Wow, look at the size of that audience! " and jumped on

a table and started doing impersonations and tap dancing. " For some

reason that I didn't understand, this made kids want to hit me. "

His other problem was that his mother was mad - he saw her try to

stab his father when he was six and was a frequent witness to her

alcoholism and paranoia. But the subject wasn't even discussed until

she ran through a hotel naked, when he was 18, and was consigned to

a mental hospital.

Obviously, this left its scars, and Alda writes: " Even when I was

into my forties and fifties, she could still enrage me with an

irrational accusation. It wasn't so much that I was impatient with

her madness. I could understand that. What I resented her for was

not being a mother. "

His father had hoped he would become a doctor, but Alda was always

determined to be an actor. His early career was difficult, and made

more so by the fact that he married at 22 and had three daughters in

quick succession, so he had five mouths to feed on very little

income. But he persisted, and by the time he was 30 he could afford

a house in New Jersey, where he happily flung himself into suburban

life.

In 1972 he started doing M*A*S*H, which lasted for 11 years - its

final episode was watched by 125 million viewers. The experience

stood him in good stead when he recently suffered an intestinal

blockage in Chile and the surgeon started describing the operation

he intended to do. Alda interrupted: " Oh, you're going to do an end-

to-end anastomosis… I did many of them on M*A*S*H. "

Mike Nichols once told Alda, " You're insane " , and one can see what

he meant. He mentions " hypomanic " episodes, followed by depressive

comedowns which he treats with Zoloft. Nichols's remark arose

because he was directing Alda in a play and felt that he was

unconvincing in a scene where he had to recall something. So he told

Alda to recall what he was thinking when he got out of his car that

morning. Alda told him that was easy: he was thinking about whether

to take his jacket with him or not. On the one hand, it was too warm

to need a jacket but on the other hand, he had brought it all the

way from home so it seemed pointless to leave it in the car. So then

he was thinking, " What should I do in the future? Is there a good

jacket policy I can derive from this? " , and at this point Nichols

told him he was insane.

He tends to over-think, over-theorise. Faced with the problem of

learning Spanish when he was stuck in hospital in Chile, he didn't

just learn a few key phrases but started " drawing diagrams for a

revolutionary new language system that would enable anyone to learn

any language in a week. My old pattern was intact. I don't just get

flooded with ideas, I get flooded with systems. "

He is also much given to wild enthusiasms. As a boy, he was so keen

on Roman Catholicism that he took communion every day, until he

suddenly decided he could not believe in transubstantiation and

stopped entirely. As an out-of-work actor, he decided to make money

on the horses and headed for the library to research betting

systems. He chose the old gale, doubling the bet every time he

lost - amazingly, he came out on top and only stopped when he was

too busy acting to keep betting.

But when he was nominated for an last year, for his part in

The Aviator, he studied the betting form intensely and concluded

(correctly) that he would lose to Freeman.

His current obsession is science and playing with his seven

grandchildren - " making toys out of cardboard boxes, teaching them

magic tricks, making robots, figuring out how to drop an egg two

storeys without breaking it [suspend it on rubber bands in a box] " .

He must be exhausting company. He credits his wife, Arlene, with

teaching him " to live in a world that has actual people in it and

not just a string of audiences " , but even so you feel he has not

quite got the hang of normal life.

[Guest guest]

Lynn Barber reviews Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?

xml=/arts/2006/02/05/boald05.xml & sSheet=/arts/2006/02/05/bomain.html

The irritating title comes from the fact that, as a boy, Alan Alda

was so upset when his dog died that his parents had the animal

stuffed. Unfortunately the taxidermist gave the dog a terrifying

snarl, which meant people backed out of the room at the sight of it.

From this, Alda concludes that we should not try to preserve the

past - a slightly odd premise for an autobiography, but then this is

a slightly odd book.

British audiences probably know Alda best as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H, but

in America he has had more recent fame as a theatre actor and

television science presenter. In fact, he has won dozens of awards,

which I only learnt from a website - he doesn't mention them in his

book.

He was born into showbiz 70 years ago, not quite in a trunk but

getting on that way. His father, Alda, worked in burlesque as

what was known as " the tit singer " - he sang at the side of the

stage while chorus girls danced and stripped. Alan Alda made his

stage debut when he was six months old and posed for publicity

photographs, aged two, smoking a pipe. " It was a world, " he

recalls, " of coarse jokes and laughter late into the night, a world

of gambling and drinking and the frequent sight of the buttocks,

thighs, and breasts of naked women. "

But all this changed when he was seven and his father was signed by

Warner Bros as a leading man. The family moved to Los Angeles and

settled in a remote canyon in the mountains. Alda, an only child,

was educated at home by tutors and hardly ever saw other children.

When he finally started school at 11, he was the immediate target of

bullies. The reason, he explains, was that he had grown up thinking

of non-showbiz people as " civilians " and believing that the only way

to relate to them was by performing. So as soon as he got to school

he thought, " Wow, look at the size of that audience! " and jumped on

a table and started doing impersonations and tap dancing. " For some

reason that I didn't understand, this made kids want to hit me. "

His other problem was that his mother was mad - he saw her try to

stab his father when he was six and was a frequent witness to her

alcoholism and paranoia. But the subject wasn't even discussed until

she ran through a hotel naked, when he was 18, and was consigned to

a mental hospital.

Obviously, this left its scars, and Alda writes: " Even when I was

into my forties and fifties, she could still enrage me with an

irrational accusation. It wasn't so much that I was impatient with

her madness. I could understand that. What I resented her for was

not being a mother. "

His father had hoped he would become a doctor, but Alda was always

determined to be an actor. His early career was difficult, and made

more so by the fact that he married at 22 and had three daughters in

quick succession, so he had five mouths to feed on very little

income. But he persisted, and by the time he was 30 he could afford

a house in New Jersey, where he happily flung himself into suburban

life.

In 1972 he started doing M*A*S*H, which lasted for 11 years - its

final episode was watched by 125 million viewers. The experience

stood him in good stead when he recently suffered an intestinal

blockage in Chile and the surgeon started describing the operation

he intended to do. Alda interrupted: " Oh, you're going to do an end-

to-end anastomosis… I did many of them on M*A*S*H. "

Mike Nichols once told Alda, " You're insane " , and one can see what

he meant. He mentions " hypomanic " episodes, followed by depressive

comedowns which he treats with Zoloft. Nichols's remark arose

because he was directing Alda in a play and felt that he was

unconvincing in a scene where he had to recall something. So he told

Alda to recall what he was thinking when he got out of his car that

morning. Alda told him that was easy: he was thinking about whether

to take his jacket with him or not. On the one hand, it was too warm

to need a jacket but on the other hand, he had brought it all the

way from home so it seemed pointless to leave it in the car. So then

he was thinking, " What should I do in the future? Is there a good

jacket policy I can derive from this? " , and at this point Nichols

told him he was insane.

He tends to over-think, over-theorise. Faced with the problem of

learning Spanish when he was stuck in hospital in Chile, he didn't

just learn a few key phrases but started " drawing diagrams for a

revolutionary new language system that would enable anyone to learn

any language in a week. My old pattern was intact. I don't just get

flooded with ideas, I get flooded with systems. "

He is also much given to wild enthusiasms. As a boy, he was so keen

on Roman Catholicism that he took communion every day, until he

suddenly decided he could not believe in transubstantiation and

stopped entirely. As an out-of-work actor, he decided to make money

on the horses and headed for the library to research betting

systems. He chose the old gale, doubling the bet every time he

lost - amazingly, he came out on top and only stopped when he was

too busy acting to keep betting.

But when he was nominated for an last year, for his part in

The Aviator, he studied the betting form intensely and concluded

(correctly) that he would lose to Freeman.

His current obsession is science and playing with his seven

grandchildren - " making toys out of cardboard boxes, teaching them

magic tricks, making robots, figuring out how to drop an egg two

storeys without breaking it [suspend it on rubber bands in a box] " .

He must be exhausting company. He credits his wife, Arlene, with

teaching him " to live in a world that has actual people in it and

not just a string of audiences " , but even so you feel he has not

quite got the hang of normal life.