I'm guessing that since he was quite involved with writing in the M.A.S.H. series it was probably his idea to portray himself as a guy who has a fantastic body. What an effing joke that is! He looks more like a plucked chicken than any sort of desirable man. What an ego! It was hilarious the first time I heard it said, then it just kind of made me feel sorry for him. A good actor? Maybe. A sex symbol? Wishful thinking!
shareI don't know. Everyone said "Hot Lips" was super hot on the show, too. And they called Radar a "kid" even though he was over 30 when the show started. I think this is another area where we're supposed to suspend disbelief and accept that he has a hot body that everyone fawns over.
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I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.
Gary Burghoff was born in 1943, making him 29 (not over 30) when the series started. How hard is it to check your facts before posting here, crockett? And to you and the OP, when did Alan Alda ever say, or even suggest, that he had a "fantastic body"?? It seems you're all missing the backstory of the whole show - these people, a lot of whom were NOT Regular Army, but conscripted for their medical (etc) skills, weren't just in a WAR ZONE, they were within a few miles of the front line - knee deep in the blood & guts of 22 year olds (though it's supposedly about the Korean War, M*A*S*H* is clearly based on the Vietnam War, and the average soldiers' age was 22) .... and undoubtedly scared SH!TLESS every moment of every day - and people cope with that degree of fear in different ways. "Hawkeye" dealt with it by being the consummate flirtatious, self-flattering, sarcastic goofball.....what a "judge-without-thinking-first" some posters are. Very sad, imo.
Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot - than to open it and remove all doubt!
I'm sorry, but I have no idea what your post has to do with the current topic.
Fine, if Gary Burghoff was 29 when the show started and I said he was over 30, I was so far off, you had to tell me to go check my facts. Okay, I don't think 29 is a kid, either.
Aren't you the same one who got mad at me a few months earlier because I said I wanted to punch a fictional character and told me to grow up?
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I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.
Maybe you should re-read the OP's post, then your own, then all the others, and THEN re-read mine. If you STILL can't figure out what my post "has to do with the topic", then I can only assume you suffer from some pretty serious PCS, and I hope it never gets any worse.
And no, it wasn't me who said anything to you months ago. I rarely waste my time on (WADR) posters like you.
Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot - than to open it and remove all doubt!
I'm sorry, but I don't know what PCS means in this context, or WADR, either.
Please feel free not to waste any more of your valuable time responding to me.
Maybe this was where that other poster was going with "coarse GN"?
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I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.
I never saw any indication that MASH tried to make any of its male stars studs, unlike the majority of shows and movies today that always seem to have some hard or hot body. Not being female, I can't see anything particularly attractive about him, but he never seemed to mind rejection and if you go to a bar and hit on every eligible woman there, your odds on finding one to say yes seem fairly high.
Where you get that he's a supposed to be a sex symbol?
I think it was People magazine or some similar tabloid that called him "The Sexiest Man Alive." It was the tabloid, not Alda nor the show, who saw him that way.
Not necessarily meaning he had a fantastic body though. His general looks and personality more probably what would have been considered to make him sexy.
shareportray himself as a guy who has a fantastic body.Hawkeye having a "fantastic body" is never said nor implied on the show. He says that about plenty of nurses, though.
I read one of his interviews. He was even then happily married (Arlene?) but hey, a jobs a job. That may be why he became such a women's libber later in the series.
Interestingly, when Pat Boone was cast to play in the 1956 remake of "State Fair" along with his movie love interest Ann Margret (very hot back then), because of his Christian faith and being a fairly newlywed, he refused to kiss her during the movie... which made for a pretty cold romance.
Funny that he said that because Pat Boone and Alan Alda kind of lookalike.
shareI don't remember any episode in which his body was made much of. Waht episodes did that happen in? I thought he had quite an attractive face, but don't remember noticing his body particularly. I don't think in those days we were as obsessed with muscular bodies on men as people are now.
shareWaht episodes did that happen in?None. share
None. Apparently it was his personality they were attracted to, and also apparently it works as at one time he was "engaged" to 3 different nurses who were quite attractive (Cease Fire.)
shareI never understood Hawkeye/Alda as a heartthrob either but I don't think it was supposed to be because of his looks like it is now days, back then men were considered "hot" if they were smooth and interesting etc, which Hawkeye also wasn't.
He came across as an insecure man child most of the time.
Sometimes a movie or tv show plot is so stupid that only the stupid can understand it.
Take it from a man who is only 5-7,..women like tall men,..Hawkeye was tall, thin, and quite a smooth talker,..actually it was Trapper who Hot lips told in a drunken moment "you're really built too you son of a gun,.."
I never quite got why Hot Lips was considered so desirable, maybe it was her 'promiscuity with higher ranking officers but there were MUCH hotter looking nurses at the 4077th..
You have a point, his basic features were attractive in the same way that "Tall, busty blonde" sounds good and yet not all women who fit that description are actually nice to look at.
I actually can see Trapper and BJ as being attractive to women.
Anyway, Hot Lips was based on a few different nurses one of them being Hot Lips Hammerly. When I was reading up on nurses in Korea a few years back one comment really summed it up and that was a nurse who said that a woman who would barely be asked out back in the States would be the Belle of the ball in Korea.
And that is how I sum up Houlihan/Switt, not ugly but certainly not all she was cracked up to be either, there were many nurses in the 4077tn that were much better looking than Houlihan/Switt.
Sometimes a movie or tv show plot is so stupid that only the stupid can understand it.
I had a crush on him when I was young I am so happy I got to meet him.
shareHow long ago did you meet him and what were the circumstances?
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I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.
In august talking about communicating science.
shareIf you care to elaborate, I think I would be interested and a lot of others would be, too.
Personally, I think that would be a neat experience.
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I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.
I told him that my great grandpa was an engineer for howard hughes since he was in the aviator. I told him that I liked seeing him on one of his science shows talking to a girl that formally couldn't here and I said I liked it because I like whenever I hear stories in the news of movie stars being nice to kids and I liked seeing a movie star like you being nice to a kid and I told him I like his movies and my favorite movie you did was what women want.
shareYep, that's a pretty interesting story. It's good that you had something to share with him, too.
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I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.
If he is an a hole, maybe he should've been Hawkeye in the Altman film.
Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Pete Townshend watch My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
What. The. Frak.
Hawkeye was popular because he was very likeable, very bright, very funny, very anarchic and very self confident.
Not because he had some kind of impressive body.
To my best knowledge, nobody states the later on the show, ever.
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A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.
Why do you say boooody like that? What do you know about his boooody?
shareI agree but I am a dude and if there is one thing I have learned through my many years of life its that women dont think like men. What a woman finds attractive is often times not what a guy thinks she would find attractive. Personality is huge with woman as far as attraction goes and most guys I know never ever get that concept.
share