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 Alda, 82, who announced in July that he had been diagnosed with
Parkinson's disease three years earlier, was presented the honor
by film star and one-time-costar Tom Hanks at the Screen Actors
Guild (SAG) awards dinner in Los Angeles.
"I see more than ever how proud I am to be part of our
brotherhood and sisterhood of actors," Alda said, after
receiving a sustained standing ovation from his peers.
Declaring it was every actor's job to "get inside a character's
head and to search for a way to see life from that person's
point of view."
"It may never have been more urgent to see the world through
another person's eyes than when a culture is divided so
sharply," he added.
Alda is most remembered for his Emmy-winning portrayal of the
insubordinate but highly skilled Army surgeon Captain Benjamin
Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce on "M*A*S*H," the landmark comedy
series set during the Korean War.
A show that ran 11 seasons on CBS and years more in syndicated
reruns. Its 1983 series finale was watched by nearly 106 million
viewers, a record that stood three decades as the largest
audience for a U.S. TV broadcast.
The New York-born performer got his start in live theater, made
dozens of motion pictures and worked extensively elsewhere on
TV, including two seasons on NBC's celebrated political drama
"The West Wing," playing a Republican U.S. senator.
"The West Wing" earned Alda his sixth Emmy Award, on top of five
previous Emmys for his work on "M*A*S*H." He is the only
performer to win Emmys for acting, directing and writing on the
same series. He also was a three-time Tony Award nominee for his
Broadway work, most recently in 2005 for "Glengarry Glen Ross."
On the big screen, Alda earned an Oscar nomination for his
supporting role as a real-life U.S. senator, Republican Owen
Brewster, in Martin Scorsese's 2004 historical biopic "The
Aviator" about mogul Howard Hughes.
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Alda, however, will remain forever associated with "M*A*S*H," based
on the 1970 Korean War movie satire directed by Robert Altman and
adapted from a novel of the same name by a real-life doctor who
served in Korea.
The show centered on the antics of Hawkeye Pierce and fellow doctors
and nurses of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital - MASH for
short - as they struggled to keep their sanity and save lives. When
not tending to waves of wounded GIs, Hawkeye and his pals passed
their time playing practical jokes, carousing with nurses and
drinking to excess.
A far cry from several military sitcoms that came before it,
"M*A*S*H" went beyond poking fun at Army life to deal with such
issues as circumstantial ethics and the morality of war.
Premiering in September 1972 as America was still embroiled in
Vietnam, "M*A*S*H" struggled in the ratings during its first season
before catching on with viewers, lauded by critics and resonating
with the anti-war sentiment of the time. It ran about eight years
longer than the Korean conflict.
The success of "M*A*S*H" helped spur a prolific film career. Among
his most memorable movies were "Same Time, Next Year" opposite Ellen
Burstyn, "California Suite" with Jane Fonda, both in 1978, and the
1979 political drama co-starring Meryl Streep, "The Seduction of Joe
Tynan." Alda wrote and directed several of the films he starred in,
including "Joe Tynan."
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia
Osterman and Michael Perry)
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