Harry Morgan, who portrayed Colonel Sherman Potter for eight seasons on M*A*S*H and an additional two on AfterMASH, passed away this morning at the age of 96. Although M*A*S*H defined his career, Morgan spent five decades acting, starting with bit parts in films in the early 1940s before transitioning to television in the mid-1950s. He co-starred in December Bride from 1954-1959; from 1960-1962 he starred in a spin-off of that series, Pete and Gladys. He had a recurring role on Kentucky Jones from 1964-1965. Then, from 1967-1970 he appeared opposite Jack Webb in a revival of Webb’s police drama, Dragnet.

Harry Morgan (1915-2011)

Morgan followed up Dragnet with a recurring role in Hec Ramsey from 1972-1974. Then, on September 10th, 1974, he made a memorable guest appearance on the third season premiere of M*A*S*H. When McLean Stevenson (Colonel Blake) left the series at the end of that season, Morgan was brought in to replace him the following year as commanding officer of the 4077th. Morgan’s Colonel Potter was a very different CO, stricter in many ways than Blake, but fit in well with the other characters. For his role on M*A*S*H, Morgan was nominated for ten Emmy Awards (nine for acting and one for directing) and won once in 1980 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Variety or Music Series. He also was nominated for a DGA Award in 1982.

Scriptwriter Ken Levine has posted a few memories of working with Harry Morgan. MSNBC.com has a list of seven great Colonel Potter moments. TV Land has put together the following brief video and has announced it will be airing special episodes of M*A*S*H to honor Harry Morgan this weekend:

In 2004, Morgan was interviewed for three-and-a-half hours for the Archive of American Television. Here’s an excerpt in which he discusses his famous role of Colonel Potter:

Here’s Alan Alda talking about Harry Morgan, from his own Archive of American Television interview:

Obituaries can be found at The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NPR.com and Variety.com.

The fourth and final episode of PBS’s America in Primetime aired last night. The episode focused on “The Crusader” character from television. One of these crusaders was Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H and Alan Alda was among those discussing the character. You can watch the entire episode at PBS.org; I’ve embedded the segment about Hawkeye and M*A*S*H below (skip to approximately 2:00):

Some excerpts:

Alan Alda on heroic images of war:
“I was a boy during the Second World War and pretty much what you saw during the movies was the heroics. It simply would not be done: show an image of the day to day suffering that goes into it.”

Alda on Hawkeye’s conservatism:
“Some people think it he was very liberal. But he was also a traditional conservative. I mean, he wanted nothing more than to have people leave him alone so he could enjoy his martini, you know? The government should get out of his liquor cabinet.”

Alda on “Preventive Medicine:”
“Well, at the rehearsal for this, Mike Farrell said ‘I’m playing a doctor who takes this seriously and I will not operate on a patient who doesn’t need the operation. That’s mutilation.’ And we started an argument that lasted about an hour that day. And at a certain point we said, you know what? This is what we ought to be doing on camera because this is a serious conflict.”

Alda’s closing comment:
“We openly dealt with all the sides of war. And we were exploring things that were not neat. There was no right and there was no wrong. But it came out of passion and disgust and anger and upset at being where they were and going through what they were going through. And that’s, I think, more useful to know than to see what I saw as a kid, when they would shoot down an enemy plane and they’d would all laugh and cheer. There’s more interest, human interest, in looking at the real cause than there is in just skimming across the surface.”

Judd Apatow (executive producer, Freaks and Geeks) on watching M*A*S*H as a kid:
“On some level I knew, ‘Oh, this is someone who is speaking out against hypocrisy and that it’s wrong to hurt people.’ I assume it just wired my brain for almost a compassionate way of looking at the world that seems king of full of crap. But it is true. When you’re watching M*A*S*H two times a day from the time your like five years old for ten or twelve years you know what you’re soaking in is the humanity of Larry Gelbart and his way of looking at the world.”

Hugh Laurie (actor, House) on the laugh track:
“When the BBC showed M*A*S*H, they showed it without laughter. There was no laugh track on it. So, I suppose an English audience, we tended to look at it in a rather more dramatic way.”

Tom Fontana (executive producer, Homicide: Life on the Street), Linda Wallen (co-creator, Nurse Jackie) and Steven Bocho (co-creator, NYPD Blue) also share their thoughts on the character of Hawkeye and M*A*S*H.

Tonight at 8PM, PBS will broadcast the fourth and final episode of America in Primetime, which from what I’ve read is not your typical documentary but rather a collection of interviews with actors, directors and writers attempting to explain how contemporary television has been influenced by decades worth of creativity and effort. Each episode has focused on an archetypal television character: Independent Woman, Man of the House, The Misfit and tonight, “The Crusader.” Among those interviewed for “The Crusader” were Hugh Laurie, Dennis Franz, Michael Chiklis, Gillian Anderson and Alan Alda, who will presumably be talking about M*A*S*H and the famous crusader he portrayed, Hawkeye Pierce.

Check your local listings to see if America in Primetime is airing on your PBS station tonight.

Actor Alan Fudge, who guest starred in “Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler” as the eponymous Captain Chandler, passed away on October 10th at the age of 67. Fudge also made guest appearances on Trapper John, M.D. and AfterMASH, thereby completing the M*A*S*H trifecta (how many people can say that?). He had recurring roles in several television series, including Man From Atlantis, Eischied and 7th Heaven.

Alan Fudge as Captain Chandler in “Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?”

His nearly four decade career began in 1972 with a guest role on Gunsmoke, followed by dozens of guest spots in shows like The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Police Story, Lou Grant, The A-Team and Dallas. According to his IMDb profile, Fudge’s last television appearance was a 2009 episode of The Office. An obituary can be found at Variety.com.

(Thanks to Dan.)

Character actor Leonard Stone, who played Colonel Bidwell in “The General’s Practitioner,” passed away on Wednesday (November 2nd) at the age of 87. Many obituaries (The New York Times, CBS News, The Los Angeles Times) mention his 1971 role as the father of Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory as well as his Tony Award nomination for a 1959 play called Rehead.

Leonard Stone as Colonel Bidwell in “The General’s Practitioner”

In addition to M*A*S*H, Stone made guest appearances on dozens of television shows including Gunsmoke, Mannix, Land of the Giants, Mission: Impossible, Quincy, M.E., Perry Mason and Falcon Crest. He was a regular on Camp Runamuck (read more at Television Obscurities), an NBC sitcom that ran from 1966-1967. According to his Internet Movie Database entry, Stone’s acting career began in 1956 and spanned five decades, with his last credit a 2006 made-for-TV movie called Surrender, Dorothy.