Latest news with #Alda
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alan Alda says his face blindness made him not recognize his daughter: 'I don't think she was too happy'
Good one, dad. Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor Alan Alda is opening up about the time he didn't recognize his own daughter due to a condition he'd later come to find out was prosopagnosia, or face blindness. In all fairness, the incident occurred on the set of Alda's film The Four Seasons, after he had had his daughter, Beatrice, dye her hair a completely different color for her role in the comedy. "I saw this person with horn-rimmed glasses and blonde hair staring at me, and it was starting to get distracting," Alda recalled to PEOPLE. "I said to the assistant director, 'Don't let these strangers come on the set.' He said, 'That's your daughter!' I don't think she was too happy about that, because neither of us knew that there was such a thing as face blindness [at the time]." Alda said to this day it's "very hard" for him to recognize people due to the condition. "When somebody comes up to me, as if they know me, I often don't know if they know me from seeing me on the screen or if I actually know them," he told the outlet. "I could have dinner with somebody, spend two hours with somebody next to me, and the next day not know who they are." Alda, 89, has been open about his health struggles in recent years. In 2018, he revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015. At the time, he told CBS This Morning he decided to reveal his diagnosis after noticing his "thumb twitch" during some recent TV appearances to promote his podcast, Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda. "I thought, it's probably only a matter of time before somebody does a story about this from a sad point of view, but that's not where I am," he said. Speaking with PEOPLE more recently, Alda gave an update on his condition, telling the outlet, 'I don't have dexterity with my fingers the way I used to, so sometimes [my wife, Arlene] has to tear a package open for me,' he said. 'She's so good-natured about it. I'm always saying, 'Thank you.'" He also admitted that while managing his Parkinson's has gone from "a part-time job to almost a full-time job" over the past 10 years, he's still able to keep a positive outlook. "It keeps me always looking for the funny side," he said. Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
New York Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Alan Alda reveals he didn't recognize his own daughter due to face blindness
Alan Alda is opening up about his struggles with face blindness. In a new interview with People, the 89-year-old year recalled the time he didn't recognize his own daughter, Beatrice, due to prosopagnosia. Alda said the incident occurred on the set of his 1981 comedy 'The Four Seasons' when he had Beatrice, now 63, dye her hair for her role in the film. Advertisement 8 Alan Alda at SiriusXM Studios in NYC in Nov. 2019. Getty Images 'I saw this person with horn-rimmed glasses and blonde hair staring at me, and it was starting to get distracting,' Alda explained. 'I said to the assistant director, 'Don't let these strangers come on the set.' He said, 'That's your daughter!'' 'I don't think she was too happy about that,' Alda added, 'because neither of us knew that there was such a thing as face blindness [at the time].' Advertisement 8 Alan Alda with his wife Arlene and daughters Elizabeth, Eve and Beatrice in 1979. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images 8 Alan Alda at the AARP The Magazine's 19th Annual Movies For Grownups Awards in 2020. Getty Images The 'M*A*S*H' actor, who is still dealing with the condition, said that nowadays it's 'very hard' for him to recognize people. 'When somebody comes up to me, as if they know me, I often don't know if they know me from seeing me on the screen or if I actually know them,' he shared. Advertisement 'I could have dinner with somebody, spend two hours with somebody next to me, and the next day not know who they are,' Alda said. 8 Alan Alda in 'M*A*S*H.' Getty Images 8 Alan Alda on the set of the 1979 movie 'The Seduction of Joe Tynan' in Baltimore. Getty Images Alda also spoke to the outlet about his Parkinson's disease, which he was diagnosed with in 2015. Advertisement The Emmy Award winner said that managing the neurological disorder has 'gone from a part-time job to almost a full-time job keeping track of all these little solutions.' 8 Alan Alda attends AARP The Magazine's 19th Annual Movies For Grownups Awards. FilmMagic 'But it keeps me always looking for the funny side,' he shared. Alda further explained how his longtime wife Arlene, 92, has supported him during his health struggles. 8 Arlene Alda and Alan Alda attend the 2024 Bay Street Theater's 32nd Annual Summer Gala in July 2024. Getty Images 'I don't have dexterity with my fingers the way I used to, so sometimes she has to tear a package open for me,' he said. 'She's so good-natured about it. I'm always saying, 'Thank you.'' Alda previously gave an update on his Parkinson's in a 2020 interview with 'AARP the Magazine.' 8 Arlene and Alan Alda at a a Jewish Home LifeCare dinner in NYC in 2015. Getty Images Advertisement 'A lot of people hear they have Parkinson's and get depressed and panicky and don't do anything, just hoping it'll go away. It's not going to, but you can hold off the worst symptoms. Movement helps: walking, biking, treadmills. But also specific things: I move to music a lot.' he said. 'It's not the end of the world when you get this diagnosis.' Other celebrities who have Parkinson's include Michael J. Fox, Ozzy Osbourne and Linda Ronstadt.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alan Alda Opens Up About Having Rare Condition That Once Caused Him to Not Recognize His Daughter (Exclusive)
Alan Alda has long had face blindness, or prosopagnosia, which makes it hard for him to recognize people Alda once mistook his daughter Beatrice for a stranger while they filmed his 1981 film The Four Seasons Alda was also diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015Alan Alda is recalling a time his face blindness, or prosopagnosia, once caused him to mistake his daughter Beatrice for a stranger. For her part in his 1981 film The Four Seasons — which Tina Fey recently adapted into a series for Netflix — the beloved actor, 89, had Beatrice sent out to get her hair dyed blonde so that she'd look like the two actors playing her parents. When she came back, he couldn't recognize her. "I saw this person with horn-rimmed glasses and blonde hair staring at me, and it was starting to get distracting," Alda tells PEOPLE. "I said to the assistant director, 'Don't let these strangers come on the set.' He said, 'That's your daughter!' I don't think she was too happy about that, because neither of us knew that there was such a thing as face blindness [at the time]." These days, Alda — who was also diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015 — says it's still "very hard" for him to recognize people. "When somebody comes up to me, as if they know me, I often don't know if they know me from seeing me on the screen or if I actually know them," he says. "I could have dinner with somebody, spend two hours with somebody next to me, and the next day not know who they are." Still, his ongoing health struggles haven't stopped him. In the new Netflix adaption of The Four Seasons, Alda makes a hilarious cameo in a scene with Fey and Colman Domingo, where his character offers them some marriage advice: 'Every once in a while ... [my wife would] say, 'Congratulations! Take off your pants, it's a sex day.' You might think of trying that with your spouse.' Like his character, Alda regularly calls upon advice from his own wife of 68 years, Arlene. 'She always says, 'The secret to marriage is a short memory,'" he says. 'We both try to practice being there when we're there: listening, answering, taking an interest. You can get used to somebody no matter who it is. I've always thought if the Pope and Mother Teresa were a couple, after a few years, they'd have to work it out." Through his journey with Parkinson's, which has caused body tremors visible in his Four Seasons cameo, Alda says Arlene, 92, has been present every step of the way. 'I don't have dexterity with my fingers the way I used to, so sometimes she has to tear a package open for me,' he says. 'She's so good-natured about it. I'm always saying, 'Thank you.'" While managing his Parkinson's has gone from "a part-time job to almost a full-time job" over the past decade, Alda says the positive is that "it keeps me always looking for the funny side." The Four Seasons is streaming now on Netflix. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Four Seasons' Brings Middle-Age Malaise on Vacation
In an episode of the new Netflix comedy The Four Seasons, Tina Fey's character, Kate, compares a situation to Zelig, an obscure Woody Allen film from 1983. Kate's husband Jack (Will Forte) sarcastically replies, 'Oh, that's a really fresh reference!' The Four Seasons is perhaps an even less fresh reference. The story of three couples — Jack and Kate, Nick (Steve Carell) and Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), and Danny (Colman Domingo) and Claude (Marco Calvani) — who go on four memorable vacations together over the course of a year, it's a remake of a 1981 movie that was Alan Alda's film directorial debut. Alda's version was well-reviewed, and it grossed over $50 million (nearly $180 million in 2025 dollars), a testament to how beloved Alda was at the time as the leading man on the hit sitcom M*A*S*H. But it hasn't lingered in the collective memory the way some other films of its vintage have, in part because its target audience was moviegoers who were middle-aged, like its stars, back then. More from Rolling Stone Four Tech Billionaires Watch the World They Created Burn in New 'Mountainhead' Teaser Marriages and Friendships Are Put to the Test in Tina Fey's Cozy Netflix Series 'The Four Seasons' Tina Fey's 'The Four Seasons,' Based on the 1981 Movie, Sets Netflix Premiere Date It was also released at a time when there weren't constantly family-friendly movie options in theaters every weekends, so some parents who didn't want to hire a babysitter took their kids along to The Four Seasons. I saw it as a seven-year-old, but recall nothing other than the distinct feeling that it was a film in no way made for someone my age. Fey is a little older than me — she would have just turned 11 when it came out. And apparently either the film or her interactions with Alda when he guest-starred in several episodes of 30 Rock (playing Jack Donaghy's biological father) left enough of an impression that she, along with past and present collaborators Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, decided to adapt The Four Seasons for television. Hey, at least it's a relatively unusual deviation(*) from the kinds of things that usually get remade in the IP Is Everything era of TV! (*) A few other Seventies and Eighties films for adults have gotten similar treatment in recent years, with Showtime at one point offering new versions of both American Gigolo and The Man Who Fell to Earth, both of which came and went without much notice. Since even the 1981 movie's most laudatory reviews suggested Alda had shot several episodes of television and strung them together, the switch in mediums is an easy fit. And the nature of the story lends itself to being told in this format, with two episodes apiece for each calendar season, and thus each trip the group takes together. But despite the pedigree of that cast and of Fey, Fisher (who also created Never Have I Ever), and Wigfield (who created Great News and Peacock's Saved by the Bell legasequel) as writers, The Four Seasons never quite makes a convincing argument for why its story needed to be revisited today. There are some amusing moments, and a few genuinely poignant ones, but on the whole it feels thin — less a TV show than an excuse for a bunch of talented people, several of them old friends IRL, to hang out together in a variety of pretty locales. It's like a Grown-Ups film, but without the fart jokes. Our story begins in spring, when the group traditionally assembles at Nick and Anne's beautiful lake house. The other duos have problems — Jack and Kate's marriage has become a bit too routine, while Claude feels Danny is being too cavalier about some age-appropriate health news — but the main source of tension comes from Nick's confession that he wants to divorce Anne. 'We're like co-workers at a nuclear facility!' he says of how lifeless their marriage feels. 'We sit in the same room all night monitoring different screens!' After a cameo by Alda himself — by far the funniest and most touching part of the whole affair, with Alda proving he's still got it, even at 89 and dealing with Parkinson's — we shift to summer, where the other couples are struggling to get used to Nick's much younger new girlfriend Ginny (Erika Henningsen) while on vacation at a comically crunchy eco-friendly resort she picked out for them. Then there's an autumn parents' weekend trip to college to visit the daughters of Jack, Kate, Nick, and Anne, before the season concludes with parallel winter lodge stays for the now-splintered group(*). (*) Given that most of these friendships go back decades, it's impressive that they've made it so long taking multiple trips together per year — as much for the logistics of it as for the fact that nobody got sick of each other until this point. There are some solid bits of physical comedy here and there, particularly in the summer episodes, and dramatic moments land from time to time. There's also a late plot development that turns the show into a weirdly specific piece of typecasting for one of its actors. Mostly, though, Fey and company seem content to coast on vibes and the chemistry among the cast. The results are pleasant, but rarely more than that. Nick's daughter Lila (Julia Lester) accuses him of having a 'pretty basic midlife crisis,' and the first half of that phrase applies to most of The Four Seasons. Everybody seemed to have a good time making it. Sometimes, that spirit becomes a bit infectious. But just as various characters keep questioning why the group chose to go on one trip or another, you will probably come to the end of the season wondering why this impressive group of people decided this was the project they wanted to join forces to remake. If it ends up being a hit, Alda directed three other films, including one, Sweet Liberty, set behind the scenes of a Hollywood production. That's a subject Fey might know a thing or two about turning into a TV show. All eight episodes of The Four Seasons are now streaming on Netflix. I've seen the whole season. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Best 'Saturday Night Live' Characters of All Time Denzel Washington's Movies Ranked, From Worst to Best 70 Greatest Comedies of the 21st Century
New York Post
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Alan Alda's Parkinson's disease management has become ‘almost a full-time job'
Alan Alda is taking on his illness with a smile. In 2015, the 'M*A*S*H' star was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He also has face blindness, or prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult for him to recognize people. The 89-year-old told People magazine on Wednesday that managing his Parkinson's has 'gone from a part-time job to almost a full-time job keeping track of all these little solutions.' 'But it keeps me always looking for the funny side,' the actor shared. 'Almost every day I'm finding a new way to do something,' the father of three told the outlet. 'It's a little like a game. I've found whatever the little problem is, if I keep at it, I can eventually solve it, and then I feel like a million bucks. It's a way to have a good time under poor circumstances.' Acting continues to keep Alda busy. Most recently, he made a cameo appearance in Tina Fey's Netflix series adaptation of his 1981 film, 'The Four Seasons.' It has already been renewed for a second season. 4 Tina Fey and Alan Alda attend a special screening of the 1981 Original The Four Seasons Film at Paris Theater on April 27, 2025 in New York City. Getty Images for Netflix Alda's character in Fey's series is known for offering advice from his wife. It's no different from real life, he said. Alda has been married to his spouse, Arlene, for 68 years. 'She always says, 'The secret to marriage is a short memory,'' Alda told the outlet. 'We both try to practice being there when we're there: listening, answering, taking an interest. You can get used to somebody, no matter who it is. I've always thought if the Pope and Mother Teresa were a couple, after a few years, they'd have to work it out.' According to the outlet, Alda met Arlene, 92, during their college days in 1956 at a mutual friend's party in New York City. When a rum cake fell onto the floor, they were the only two guests who didn't hesitate to eat it. It was love at first sight. 4 (L-R) Alda, as Captain Benjamin Hawkeye Pierce, Wayne Rogers, as Captain Trapper John McIntyre, and Loretta Swit, as Major Margaret Houlihan, on the television series 'MASH,' in 1972. Getty Images '[I knew she was the one] when we ate the cake off the floor,' said Alda. 'There's something about flirting over food, and that she laughed at my jokes meant a lot. We still laugh at each other's jokes a lot, and she's getting funnier every day.' And as Alda navigates his Parkinson's, Arlene continues to be by his side. 'I don't have dexterity with my fingers the way I used to, so sometimes she has to tear a package open for me,' Alda explained. 'She's so good-natured about it. I'm always saying, 'Thank you.' I don't get proud. I'm glad that I can do something. Proud seems like a waste of time.' Back in 2019, Alda recalled to Fox News Digital what it was like filming the final episode of 'M*A*S*H,' titled 'Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,' which he also directed. The Washington Post reported more than 106 million viewers watched the series finale. The outlet also shared that the episode was so highly anticipated that 30-second advertising slots sold for $50,000, more than some slots for the 1983 Super Bowl. 4 Arlene Alda and actor Alan Alda, as they attend a Jewish Home LifeCare dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, New York, New York March 11, 2015. Getty Images In addition to this, the United Press International reported that an estimated one million viewers in New York City alone used the toilet after the show ended, pouring 6.7 million gallons of water through the city's sewers. Alda said the pressure was on to deliver a final goodbye that fans wouldn't forget. 'I wanted to end it in a way that showed that everybody was going home with some kind of wound from the war,' said Alda. 'That the war didn't leave anybody the way they were when they started. Sometimes it was physical wounds, and sometimes it was emotional. We wanted to be authentic about that and genuine.' 'I also wanted to give everybody a goodbye, including the extras,' Alda continued. 'You know, the audience got to know the extras on the show. So I gave them all speeches about what they were all going to do when they got home. Which didn't always go well with them because they weren't used to acting, they were all used to being in the background.' 4 Alda was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015. Getty Images The star admitted he was faced with even bigger obstacles. 'The other challenge in directing the final episode was the outdoor location that we used in the mountains of Malibu,' said Alda. 'It caught fire on a Friday night or Saturday morning, and the entire set burned to the ground. I still had a lot of scenes to shoot there. So I spent the weekend rewriting the script and wrote a fire into it. And the rest of the show took place in another location. But that's one of the fun things that happen when you're acting. You have everything prepared. Everything is all set up to go, and then at the last minute, you have to improvise, which is exciting.' He also told Fox News Digital that his wife's advice on keeping a short memory to ensure a long marriage 'works.' 'Two people can't live together unless they occasionally have a difference of opinion or a different way of doing things,' he said. 'And as you're working that out, no matter how strongly you feel, I think it's good to remember that you love this person. It's easy to forget when you get upset about something. And it shortens up the conversation a lot.'
