McClain Stevenson
JC from Gnat Flats, Texas
Is he still alive?
Tea Monkey
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, JC from Gnat Flats, Texas
<jjccccoo...@wwccnneett.nneett> wrote:
> Colonel Henry Blake of MASH 4077.
>
> Is he still alive?
Both the character and the actor are dead, the latter for several
years now.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
JC from Gnat Flats, Texas
was pretty good.
"Tea Monkey" <tea.m...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:3C6BF324...@sympatico.ca...
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
> Colonel Henry Blake of MASH 4077.
>
> Is he still alive?
Maclean died after an appearance on the Golden Girls. That was the
episode in which Bea Arthur stood up in a public place and shouted
out that he was impotent. Nice going, Bea.
B-)
JC from Gnat Flats, Texas
"The Grim Sweeper" <t...@innvalid.edu> wrote in message
news:u6nu3vi...@corp.supernews.com...
> In article <oGSa8.1603$%M.11...@atlpnn01.usenetserver.com>,
> "JC from Gnat Flats, Texas" <jjccccoo...@wwccnneett.nneett>
> wrote:
>
> > Thanks. Hate to hear that. I've been watching those MASH reruns on FX
and he
> > was pretty good.
>
>
> - TGS
Whatever. I'm not all that enamored by critical reviews.
JC from Gnat Flats, Texas
"R." <r747*@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:y0Ta8.7397$qt6.6...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> "JC from Gnat Flats, Texas" <jjccccoo...@wwccnneett.nneett> wrote in
> message news:k1Sa8.1132$%M.6...@atlpnn01.usenetserver.com...
>
> > Colonel Henry Blake of MASH 4077.
>
> > Is he still alive?
>
> No. McLean Stevenson died Feb. 15, 1996, at 66 of a heart attack.
> Six years ago tomorrow.
> And he was Lt. Col. Henry Blake.
> He appeared with Alan Alda previously in the tv show, "That Was The
Week
> That Was" where McLean was a writer.
> He guest hosted The Tonight Show starting in 1973.
> His grandfather was Adlai E. Stevenson, Vice President to Pres. Grover
> Cleveland, 1893-1897.
> His second cousin was Adlai Stevenson, Dem. presidential nominee, 1952,
> 1956.
> In one of those absolutely weird Hollywood connections, Roger Bowen,
63,
> who played Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the movie "M*A*S*H" died the very next
> day in Florida, Feb. 16, 1996, also of a heart attack.
>
> http://us.imdb.com/Name?Stevenson,+McLean
> McLean Stevenson, 66 (Nov. 14, 1929 Normal, IL - Feb. 15, 1996 Los
> Angeles, CA)
>
>
> http://us.imdb.com/Name?Bowen,+Roger
> Roger Bowen, 63 (May 25, 1932 Attelboro, MA - Feb. 16, 1996 Florida)
>
> http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Bowen,+Roger
> Mr. Bowen was a comedic actor and novelist, best known for his portrayal
of
> Colonel Henry Blake in the film version of 'M*A*S*H'. He often portrayed
> roles as a stuffy defender of the upper class and had regular roles on a
> number of television series. His acting career aside, Mr. Bowen always
> considered himself a writer who only moonlighted as an actor; he wrote
> eleven novels as well as sketches for Broadway and television. He was also
> one of the co-founders of Chicago's famed Second City comedy and acting
> troupe.
>
>
> http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Stevenson,+McLean
>
> Mini biography
>
> McLean Stevenson was born in Illinois, where his father was a
cardiologist.
> After serving in the Navy, he attended Northwestern University, receiving
a
> bachelor's degree in theater arts. Stevenson worked at a radio station,
> played a clown on a live television show in Dallas and sold insurance and
> medical equipment. In 1961, Adlai Stevenson Mclean's second cousin,
invited
> him to a party where, mingling with show business luminaries like Gower
> Champion and Sanford Meisner Stevenson decided to become an actor. He
> auditioned and won a scholarship to the American Musical and Dramatic
> Academy. While studying under Meisner and Lee Strasberg. He made his
acting
> debut in a summer stock production of "The Music Man" and followed up with
> work in television commercials, "The Defenders" and "The Ed Sullivan
Show".
> He also appeared with Alan Alda in the series "That Was the Week That
Was",
> for which Stevenson was a writer. He also wrote for "The Smothers Brothers
> Comedy Hour". After a guest appearance on "That Girl, " with Marlo Thomas
he
> was signed to a regular role on "The Doris Day Show" in 1969. In the fall
of
> 1973, Stevenson, already a popular guest on the "Tonight" show, began a
> long-running second career as a guest host on the show. He appeared in his
> best known role as the bumbling surgeon and commanding officer, Col. Henry
> Blake, on the successful TV series "M*A*S*H". However, Stevenson was soon
> chafing at his second-banana role on "M*A*S*H" and asked to be released
from
> his contract. In the last episode of the 1974-75 season, Blake was
> reassigned and his plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. After
leaving
> "M*A*S*H", Stevenson headlined in a series of failed TV shows.
>
>
> Trivia
>
> McLean's first name came from McLean County, Illinois, where he was born
and
> raised.
>
> Grandfather was Vice-President Adlei E. Stevenson, who served under
> President Grover Cleveland from 1893 to 1897.
>
> Cousin of Democratic presidential candidate (1952 and 1956) Adlai
Stevenson.
>
> Stevenson died one day before Roger Bowen. Bowen played the role of Col.
> Henry Blake in the movie "M*A*S*H;" Stevenson played the role on TV.
>
> Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Hollywood, California, USA, in
> the Columbarium of Valor.
>
> To research for his role as an army surgeon in "M*A*S*H" (1972), McLean
> Stevenson thoroughly studied a book on the history of medicine loaned from
> Alan Alda. Months later, that knowledge proved extremely useful when he
came
> upon a person who was criticaly wounded in a car accident. Drawing on his
> research, he was able to keep the person alive until help arrived.
>
> Brother of Ann Whitney.
>
>
>
Mpoconnor7
>>
>> - TGS
>
>Whatever. I'm not all that enamored by critical reviews.
>
The movie was great; the show was great until Larry Linville left the show.
The last four years of MASH were painful.
Didn't McLean Stevenson leave MASH in 1975 because he was supposed to take over
the Tonight Show because Carson was talking about quitting? He would have been
a much better host than Leno.
Michael O'Connor - Modern Renaissance Man
"The probability of one person being right increases in a direct porportion to
the intensity with which others try to prove him wrong"
The Avocado Avenger
Funniness aside, I remember that episode (having seen it in the endless
reruns on Lifetime network) and remembered he looked pretty healthy. I
assumed the episode was quite a while before his death. What was the
cause of death, then? I assume it was sudden.
Stacia * The Avocado Avenger * Life is a tale told by an idiot;
http://world.std.com/~stacia/ * Full of sound and fury,
There is no guacamole anywhere. * Signifying nothing.
The Avocado Avenger
> No. McLean Stevenson died Feb. 15, 1996, at 66 of a heart attack.
> Six years ago tomorrow.
That answers the question I asked earlier.
> In one of those absolutely weird Hollywood connections, Roger Bowen, 63,
>who played Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the movie "M*A*S*H" died the very next
>day in Florida, Feb. 16, 1996, also of a heart attack.
I remember reading this here some time in the past... it makes me wonder
if the news of one Henry Blake's demise didn't do the other in.
Deaf Loser
*twitch*
RWilson963
of the film, died of a heart attack in Feb. 1996 in Florida. McLean Stevenson
also passed on from a coronary in L.A. within 24 hours, I believe; at least it
was in the same week and I believe just one day's difference.
Scott Wilson
King Daevid MacKenzie, UltimaJock!
> Colonel Henry Blake of MASH 4077.
...the _second_, television Colonel Blake; the first, in the movie, was
Roger Bowen...
> Is he still alive?
...no, he died of a heart attack on February 15, 1996 (six years ago
tomorrow)...Bowen died of a heart attack the following day...
--
+++++++++
King Daevid MacKenzie, UltimaJock!
How Radio is done. No brag, just fact.
kingd...@elknet.net
heard on WSUW Whitewater WI
"Fear and God do not occupy the same space." --- Dick Gregory
K.F. Raizor
"Mpoconnor7" <mpoco...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20020214145111...@mb-fv.aol.com...
> Didn't McLean Stevenson leave MASH in 1975 because he was supposed to take
over
> the Tonight Show because Carson was talking about quitting? He would have
been
> a much better host than Leno.
Stevenson said, when he left the show, he was "tired of being second banana"
(he'd gone to M*A*S*H from playing Doris Day's boss on "The Doris Day Show")
and wanted to have starring roles. In the early 1990s, he admitted this
mistake, saying, "I thought people liked me. They just liked the character
Henry Blake."
BTW, for the record, I thought the TV series "M*A*S*H" was pretty good until
it became the Alan Alda show.
(e-mail welcome, take out the doodah)
Mpoconnor7
>it became the Alan Alda show.
Alda pretty much controlled all aspects of the series for the last five or six
seasons (about the time Frank Burns left the show and Winchester showed up); he
wrote many of the scripts and directed many of the episodes in addition to
starring. Alan Alda still remains the only person in television history IIRC
to win Emmys for Acting, Writing and Directing a series.
I've often wondered if Alda didn't get "burnt out" from carrying the MASH
series on his shoulders for the last half of its run. When the show ended, I
figured he would become a big movie star, writing and directing and starring in
his own projects much like Woody Allen does. But he is pretty much
semi-retired after MASH and acts occasionally. I can't think of anything Alan
Alda either wrote or directed in the 19 years since MASH had its' final
episode.
Mary Campbell
>>BTW, for the record, I thought the TV series "M*A*S*H" was pretty good until
>>it became the Alan Alda show.
>
> Alda pretty much controlled all aspects of the series for the last five or six
> seasons (about the time Frank Burns left the show and Winchester showed up); he
> wrote many of the scripts and directed many of the episodes in addition to
> starring. Alan Alda still remains the only person in television history IIRC
> to win Emmys for Acting, Writing and Directing a series.
> I've often wondered if Alda didn't get "burnt out" from carrying the MASH
> series on his shoulders for the last half of its run. When the show ended, I
> figured he would become a big movie star, writing and directing and starring in
> his own projects much like Woody Allen does. But he is pretty much
> semi-retired after MASH and acts occasionally. I can't think of anything Alan
> Alda either wrote or directed in the 19 years since MASH had its' final
> episode.
Alda hasn't directed very much lately, but he could be considered a
member of Woody Allen's rep company, if such a thing exists, having appeared
in 4 (I believe) of Allen's movies.
Ed Varner
He appeared on season three of the Golden Girls on 11/14/1987, some 8.25 years
before he died. Looks like Bea is innocent.
ED
Corby Gilmore
>
> Is he still alive?
McLean Stevenson, who played Col. Henry Blake in the TV series M*A*S*H,
died of a massive heart attack on February 15, 1996. Curiously enough the
actor who played Col. Blake in the movie, Roger Bowen, succumbed to a
heart attack himself the very next day, February 16, 1996.
--
Corby Gilmore
ai...@freenet.carleton.ca
Matt Hucke
Deaf Loser <e...@NOSPAMwriteme.com> wrote:
>No. His plane was shot down over he Sea of Japan as he was going home
>
>*twitch*
This appeared on alt.tv.mash a few years ago:
Mr Gelbart (Elsig) sent the following message to this newsgroup on 29 June
1999:
- - - - -
For those of you who have inquired recently about this subject, here is an
excerpt from my book, "Laughing Matters."
Naturally, CBS did not want us to "kill" the Henry Blake character. And so
was sentimental, dear old 20th Century Fox. Killing a character in a
half-hour show had never been done before. That was all the reason Gene and
I needed to know we would have to do it. M*A*S*H was a fast track for
actors, but the late McLean Stevenson, who played Henry, was not an actor in
the classical sense. He was a personality, a terrific one. He had done a lot
of television, and appeared in a good many commercials, but I don't think he
ever felt completely comfortable working with experienced actors. Which is
not to say that he didn't do a marvelous job. I think that after three years
of co-starring in it, he felt the series had done a marvelous job for him,
too - that it had served as a showcase for his talents and he would move on,
get his own writers, producers, and directors, and do for himself what we
had all done for each other. M*A*S*H, however, was a once-in-a-career
confluence of collaborators, an experience not likely to be repeated simply
because you hoped it would. Though Mac was under contract to the series for
an additional two years, Gene and I felt that it was everyone's best
interest to let him leave. An unhappy actor in a group effort becomes a
tremendous emotional burden for all concerned. We resolved that, instead of
doing an episode in which yet another actor leaves yet another series, we
would try to have Mac/Henry's departure make a point, one that was
consistent with the series' attitude regarding the wastefulness of war; we
would have that character die as a result of the conflict. After three years
of showing faceless bit players portraying dying or dead servicemen, here
was an opportunity to have a character that our audience knew and loved, one
whose death would mean something to them. Gene and I worked out a story
entitled, "Abyssinia, Henry" - Abyssinia being a 20's expression meaning
"I'll be seeing you." The phrase struck us as very breezy, very Henry
Blake-ish. We asked two writers, a pair of M*A*S*H stalwarts, Everett
Greenbaum and the late Jim Fritzell, to write the episode. We distributed
the finished script to the cast and various production
departments, but removed the last page, which called for Radar to enter the
O.R. with the communiqué that informs everyone that Henry Blake, who had
been discharged, and was on his way back to his family in the States.
Colonel Blake's plane went down in the Sea of Japan, he informs us ... and
"there weren't no survivors." We kept that one, last page under wraps,
locking it in my desk drawer. The only cast member we let in on the secret
was Alan. We planned the schedule for this episode so that the O.R. scene
would be the last one we shot. There were, in fact, two O.R. sequences in
that show: one in which Henry is informed by Radar that he, Henry, is going
home, that he has received his discharge orders, and everyone in the room
breaks into raucous song; the second, the one in which Radar reads the
communique‚ announcing Henry's death. After we shot the first scene, the
one in which Henry gets the good news, the cast and crew, understandably,
began to wrap, pulling the plug on the episode, and for that matter, the
whole season. There were a great many visitors on the set: spectators,
press, family, friends, easily a couple of hundred people. We asked everyone
to wait a few minutes, that we had one more piece of business to finish. I
had a couple of words privately with Billy Jurgensen, our cinematographer. I
told him what was up, and asked him to position his camera for the one
additional scene. I did not want to rehearse it; we would shoot it only
once. Then, taking the cast aside, I opened a manila envelope that contained
the one-page last scene, telling them I had something I wanted to show them.
"I don't want to see it!" Gary Burghoff exploded. "I know you! You've got
pictures of dead babies in there!" Assuring him I didn't, I gave each a copy
of the one page scene to read to themselves. Each had a different reaction.
"Fucking brilliant," said Larry Linville. "You son of a bitch," Gary said to
McLean. "You'll probably get an Emmy out of this!" Mac, who had stayed to
watch the filming of he knew was his last M*A*S*H, was speechless. But that
doesn't begin to say it. We returned to the set and shot the scene. Gary
was unbelievably touching as he read the message on-camera. The others
reacted with a kind of heartfelt sincerity that was stunning - their
performance based on their real surprise and lingering shock, their
awareness of how much Mac meant to them. The performances of the extras and
crew, hearing of Henry's death for the first time, as the cameras were
rolling were all one could ask of them. Unhappily, there was some sort of
technical glitch. Either the boom mike or a light or whatever could go wrong
did and we had to shoot it again. I was heartsick. I thought Gary would
never be able to do a second take as beautifully as he did the first. He was
better. And on that second go, a totally unexpected thing happened. After
Gary finished reading his message, there was a hushed silence in the O.R.
set, as B.J.'s camera panned the stricken faces of the actors, and then
someone off-camera accidentally let a surgical instrument drop to the floor.
It was perfect, that clattering, hollow sound, filling a palpable void in a
way that no words could. I could not have planned it better; I wish I had
planned it - whenever I happen to hear it again, I marvel at how perfectly
it worked out. Mac left the stage without a word to anyone; he couldn't
stay for the wrap party. The scene destroyed him. I learned later he sat
crying in his dressing room for hours. We received a tremendous amount of
mail from people saying say that it wasn't true, that Henry wasn't really
dead. They felt that we had jerked their emotions around, that M*A*S*H was a
comedy show and it wasn't fair to do what we did to them. I think it's fair
to say that over the years we had given them fair warning that we might make
them care from time to time.
--
Matt Hucke (hu...@cynico.com)
http://www.cynico.net/~hucke/
WAR IS PEACE * FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
MICROSOFT IS STRENGTH
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Mpoconnor7 <mpoco...@aol.comnojunk> wrote:
> I can't think of anything Alan Alda either wrote or directed in the
> 19 years since MASH had its' final episode.
Of course you can't. "Sweet Liberty," "Betsy's Wedding" and "A New
Life" were all thoroughly forgettable.
Actually, I've never seen "A New Life" -- I was out of the U.S. for
much of the year it was released, and never had a desire to catch it
on video. If it's like the other two, it's no mystery why Alda has
more or less "retired."
ObitsMan
>
>The last four years of MASH were painful.
There's an easy visual test you can perform if you happen upon a rerun of the
show: Is Klinger wearing a dress? If he is, the show will probably be
entertaining. If he isn't, reach for the clicker.
Jim Beaver
"Matt Hucke" <hu...@cynico.net> wrote in message
news:a4jae9$kqn$1...@gail.ripco.com...
This is very interesting stuff (I mean the long quote from Gelbart's book
which I've snipped most of). Particularly in context of a story I may have
previously told on this ng. If this is old hat, I'm sorry. I can't
remember whether I've posted it before.
Two or three seasons after Blake's death on M*A*S*H, a friend of mine, a
sportscaster in Oklahoma City, submitted a spec script to the M*A*S*H
producers. I read it. It was a really good script, especially from someone
who'd never written a script before. It was about a Christmas blizzard that
had isolated the 4077th. The unit was snowbound just as the docs were in
desperate need of a chest surgeon to perform a delicate operation on a
wounded soldier. No one in the unit felt competent to perform the surgery,
and despite pleas for a surgeon from outside, none was available due to the
raging blizzard. Suddenly from out of the wailing snowstorm appears almost
magically a jeep bearing a doctor identifying himself as Captain So-and-So,
responding to the S.O.S. call for a chest surgeon. His arrival stuns
everyone, not just because it is so fortuitous, but because the captain is
an identical lookalike to Henry Blake. (McLean Stevenson would have played
the role.) The staff are almost unable to carry out their work because the
new doc's appearance is so startling and effecting to them. He is
bewildered by their attitude toward him, but carries on and the wounded man
is operated on and saved. Afterwards, the blizzard dies down and the
captain prepares to leave for his own unit. As he does so, he tells Radar
that he was glad to see him once more and says goodbye in a fashion strikes
Radar as far too reminiscent of someone else, someone dead in a plane crash
in the South China Sea. The captain drives off and disappears into the snow
and Radar makes a call to find out where this captain came from. The reply:
"What captain? We told you, the storm was too bad to get anyone in." Radar
decides to keep the miracle to himself.
My friend got a letter back from the M*A*S*H producers telling him that they
were mightily impressed with his script and that they would have loved to
have bought it and produced it, except for one thing: "There's no way on
earth we will ever do a show that requires the return of McLean Stevenson."
Make of that what you will. Gelbart's book seems to indicate no hard
feelings toward Stevenson, or at least great diplomacy. But the letter my
friend got seemed to make no bones about the feelings they had about
Stevenson. I wonder what Gelbart would have to say about that letter.
Jim Beaver
The Avocado Avenger
>I always hated that ending. It wasn't true to the show, although death was
>always present and possible in M*A*S*H and everybody knew that. It didn't
>have to make the point that War kills people we love. That was the whole
>point of the show since the beginning of it in Sept. 1972.
I think we go over this every few months or so. The fact that it's
been, what, over twenty years since it happened and people are still in
emotional turmoil over it says something.
>Thanks for the post of Elsig's message. I didn't see it when he first
>posted it.
I didn't, either, but I often forgo the threads where I've read it all
before. Thanks for posting.
John M.
I believe the change in dress (pardon the pun) came about when he took over
Radar's position.
John M.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, John M. <jcm...@skyweb.net> wrote:
> >There's an easy visual test you can perform if you happen upon a
> >rerun of the show: Is Klinger wearing a dress? If he is, the show will
> >probably be entertaining. If he isn't, reach for the clicker.
>
> I believe the change in dress (pardon the pun) came about when he
> took over Radar's position.
More to the point, the change in dress came about when the show's
producers realized the Klinger-as-transvestite joke was getting pretty
stale. (Of course, they were the very last people on planet Earth to
realize this, but, hey, better late than never.)
Too bad they didn't realize the same could have been said about the
entire show at that time.
King Daevid MacKenzie, UltimaJock!
> My friend got a letter back from the M*A*S*H producers telling him that they
> were mightily impressed with his script and that they would have loved to
> have bought it and produced it, except for one thing: "There's no way on
> earth we will ever do a show that requires the return of McLean Stevenson."
>
> Make of that what you will. Gelbart's book seems to indicate no hard
> feelings toward Stevenson, or at least great diplomacy. But the letter my
> friend got seemed to make no bones about the feelings they had about
> Stevenson. I wonder what Gelbart would have to say about that letter.
...I sense a couple of other possibilities here: one, that they didn't want to
go into the supernatural realm that the story suggests (I seem to recall they
positioned themselves as "realistic" in some of their later promotional
material); and, two, the story sounds so close to the popular annual Christmas
episode on the old radio series "Grand Central Station" that it certainly would
have invited legal hassles that Gelbart and Fox wouldn't want to deal with...
Jim Beaver
"King Daevid MacKenzie, UltimaJock!" <kingd...@elknet.net> wrote in
message news:3C6F66DF...@elknet.net...
Very possible, but then why not say so? Why position themselves as
unwilling to do anything whatsoever with Stevenson? "No way on earth...?"
Jim Beaver
Brad Ferguson
Beaver <jumb...@prodigy.net> wrote:
Stevenson and Loretta Swit appeared together on the old fX "Breakfast
Time" show to promote a syndicated special they'd just done for First
Alert about home security. The interview had barely started when
Stevenson began ranting about the early hour, the stupid questions, the
bad coffee, the puppet co-host and, generally, everything. Swit tried
to defuse the situation, but Stevenson was having none of it. The host
stopped the interview and threw to a commercial. When the show came
back, Stevenson was wandering around the set, punching the walls. They
finally got him out of there right after that.
It was one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen on television.
Robert R. Feigel
Sure it just couldn't have been his volatile Scottish blood reacting
to the host saying something nice about the British Royal family?
bob
"Innocent grass may conceal snake." - Charlie Chan